


The Limits Cannot Hold

by Like_a_Hurricane



Series: Pernicious Prompting [17]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Extremis, F/F, F/M, Lady Loki, M/M, Multi, Post-Iron Man 3, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Spoilers for Iron Man 3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-13
Packaged: 2017-12-13 16:18:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 65,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Like_a_Hurricane/pseuds/Like_a_Hurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a trickster at play in several dangerous games, stretching his powers to new breaking points and yet still playing, still smiling mad through it all. There is nothing worse than the waiting-time between, when he has done so much and still has so much left to do. He must rest, he must hide, and he must not weaken further.</p><p>There is an inventor who needs a particular sort of expert to save his love, and he finds a green-eyed stranger willing and more than capable, but she is too familiar to be a proper stranger, and too wily to trust.</p><p>There is a woman full of fresh, unquenchable fire, who may die if she herself, her lover and a mad stranger cannot prevent it. She offers trust to the untrustworthy, curiosity in spite of fear, and she reaches out with desire for more, ensnaring all three of them in something all the more dangerous and irresistible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "For stony limits cannot hold love out."  
> \-- _Romeo and Juliet_ ACT II Scene 2.
> 
> For two little Tumblr-prompts:
> 
> 1: " **Tony's always believed himself to be heterosexual** \- there's never been any indication otherwise for him. And then Loki happens." -- from [the-distant-aidenn](http://the-distant-aidenn.tumblr.com/)
> 
> 2: "dk if this counts as a long prompt or anything, but I'd really like **something Pepper/Tony/Loki** (criminally underappreciated constellation, if you ask me). Like proper threesome, maybe it's even Pepper's idea, not Tony's. Maybe it turns out she has magic (accident, whatever) and blah blah plot Loki ends up teaching her (for a price). _They get closer and then stuff happens. As in, **emotions and sex**_ " -- For [flylittlekoala](http://flylittlekoala.tumblr.com/)

If Tony Stark could do this on his own, he would, but strange algorithms he’d tried to apply to Extremis while drunk aside, stabilizing the stuff was easy. Unmaking it once it had been applied to a subject? Not so easy. And Banner was insisting Pepper wasn’t quite radioactive enough for his expertise to apply. Thus, Tony had gone hunting for other candidates, and found an almost suspiciously appealing stand-out among them.

When he’d first called her for a possible interview, she’d laughed at him.

A lot.

Now she just looked a bit amused and curious and wary, sitting across from him in Pepper’s office, with late afternoon light making things look almost embarrassingly post-modern and idyllic.

"Were your parents somehow unaware of Star Wars or did they just have a cruel streak?"

The woman's lips curved with slightly chagrined amusement. "Difficult to say; they were aware of the films, but I don't know if I would consider my middle name to be a cruelty. It was my mother's idea, and she was doting, if a little unwise.*"

Tony raised an eyebrow at Dr. Lyra Walker, whose middle name was apparently "Sky" which the inventor refused, point-blank, to ignore. She was tall, with jet-black hair and green eyes that made him uncomfortable for reasons he couldn't quite pin down. "Hippie, then."

"Quite."

"She's fine with you being a cold, heartless scientist?"

"Given she's in, ah, Valhalla let's say, I don't think that's relevant.**"

The inventor's brow furrowed. "Valhalla?"

She looked moderately uncomfortable, but admitted, with minimal reluctance, "My mother collected a variety of pagan beliefs. Her last one was Asatru: modern viking sort of beliefs, from what I gathered." She gestured vaguely. “I didn’t pay terribly close attention, for a number of reasons.”

"Uh-huh. How'd she die?"

"In her sleep."

Vague, but Tony was willing to let it lie. Dead parents could be a touchy subject for anyone, really: himself included. "You're strongly recommended by S.H.I.E.L.D., but you don't actually work for them. What's that about?"

"I think they're hoping that working with you might get me hooked on the sort of funding and projects you have in common with them. They've been trying to recruit me for a while now."

"Why is that?"

"I'm good at what I do."

"You worked at AIM for a while, I noticed."

"Under Maya Hansen, yes. I reported some of their more questionable activities and was dismissed."

"Reported them to?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D."

"You had contacts there. How?"

"I believe that's detailed in the folder you've not entirely hidden under the rest of my S.H.I.E.L.D. dossier about the occasion I saved Steve Rogers' life."

"Yeah, someone Russian had a serum intended to counter his, and it was poisoning him. His recovery time was slowed so they might've killed him. How did you counter that, exactly?"

"My studies up until then had been on a number of related topics. I wrote an entire thesis on the possible mechanisms in the serum that created 'Captain America' shortly before he was rediscovered alive and extracted from the ice. It was, unfortunately, used by the same people who poisoned him. They wanted use of me because of that."

"Which is why the showdown was near the lab you'd been working in, yeah. Steve really lucked out with you."

Lyra's smile was small, almost coy, and unreadable as the most carefree look of a particularly aloof feline, since the rest of her was still and she had no twitching tail to otherwise give anything away.

Something about that smile, and those eyes, made hairs on the back of Tony's neck stand on end, but he couldn’t pin down quite why for the life of him. "All I need is help keeping Pepper stable until I can reverse-engineer Extremis."

"Or otherwise stabilize it, perhaps?"

He snorted. "S.H.I.E.L.D. tell you that?"

"They don't tell me much, not really. Just hints they believe might tempt me into accepting their job offers. Nothing so substantial." She ran a hand through her hair, looking ceiling-ward for a moment, as though remembering something wistfully. "I ask because Dr. Hansen's original goal was for Extremis to require only a one-time application, and she was convinced that the algorithm you left her was the first step toward that end. All applications after the initial treatment were of a modified form of Extremis keeping the more glitchy aspects of it stable over time. I helped streamline the alterations, and the portable version of the application––” She shot him a warning, defensive look. “-and that was because I suspected people had already suffered enough from a _lack_ of such things."

"That was included in your reports, yeah. Impressive, actually." Tony clicked his tongue. "Those upgrades helped them execute their master plans based around the Mandarin, you know. You sped things along for them by a couple respectable little leaps."

Her lips thinned. "I've been recently made aware." She continued to sound terribly controlled and calm, but there was an edge of something sharper there, this time. She was either annoyed, troubled, both, or a really fine actor.

"What'd you think they'd do with it?"

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, eyes shut for a moment before they went right back to holding the inventor's gaze as unwaveringly as before. "I only thought to see fewer people dead violently in the end. I suspected that they were applying the drug by less stable means before that, but had seen no proof of it. I had only suspicions to work on, and while they valued me for my useful input, it was--not enough to earn their trust. I wasn't aware how deep that particular rabbit hole went, let's say. I put more faith in Maya--Dr. Hansen-" she corrected hastily, and cleared her throat before continuing, "-than I should have. I do regret that."

Tony wanted to hold that against her. He did. He couldn't, though. Not when he'd done the same, and hadn't thought to warn Pepper about her at all. He hadn't put the pieces together fast enough, or gotten suspicious fast enough. "Fair," he said simply.

"Not at all," Lyra responded.

The inventor offered a bitter half-smirk at that. "You're right."

She returned the smile with a hint of almost mischievous amusement, more genuine than any she'd displayed so far.

It looked oddly familiar on her. "You're sure I haven't met you before? Was I drunk? Did I hit on you embarrassingly?"

Lyra looked a bit amused. "Come to think of it, you might have offered me a drink once, some months ago. I believe I declined."

"When?" His eyes narrowed.

"I believe it was during my own, ah, drunk-and-feeling-invincible phase," she said. "I thought I'd imagined it, but you seem so sure you've seen me before."

Somehow the latter half of that sounded off, just a little. Tony, however, couldn't resist commenting, "Why did you turn me down, then?"

She tilted her head slightly, appraisingly giving him a quick head-to-toe look-over. "Good question."

He cleared his throat. _Bad idea_. "I'm taken."

Lyra nodded. "Trust me, that's more than obvious." She sounded thoroughly amused, and perhaps lightly mocking. "And this is hardly the same situation. I don't generally flirt with my employers in any serious manner, Mr. Stark; I merely banter. Nothing more."

"Even Maya?"

"She was my superior. Not my employer. Slight difference. Also, it was casual and did not interfere with our professional work."

"I didn't know she liked women, actually."

"Neither did she."

Tony whistled. "Nice."

"As I recall, Mr. Stark, you're taken."

For a fleeting moment, he thought about asking Pepper a truly disastrous question, but immediately dismissed it as being likely to get him slapped. He cleared his throat. "Quite right."

 

~~

 

Then there was the ultimate test: vetting by Pepper. Tony led her into the medical wing of the tower and introduced them magnanimously. “She’ll be completing your interview, Dr. Walker.”

Lyra nodded. "Hello."

"Hi." From her place laying back on one of the beds, Pepper nodded back.

The two women shook hands and exchanged professional, cool smiles.

"You worked for Killian?" was Pepper’s opening gambit, as she sat up and turned to that her legs dangled off the side. She was dressed in exceptionally expensive business-casual, looking immaculate, professional, and in complete control as she always did when serious matters were at hand. The covers under her appeared freshly made.

"Yes, though I never had opportunity to meet him. I was brought on to bribe Dr. Hansen, who had been in need of assistance, and knew of my work."

"I did read the reports you sent to S.H.I.E.L.D.," Pepper mused.

Lyra's eyebrows raised. "You both really do have no shame about hacking them, do you?"

"Nope," Tony said, at the same time Pepper said, "Well, no."

The doctor nodded thoughtfully.

"Problem?" Tony asked.

"Not particularly. I'm no anarchist, but without someone keeping them a bit antagonized, in a way that doesn't really do much harm as your 'privatization of world-peace' idea suggests of your intentions, I think S.H.I.E.L.D. would be worse off for it."

"You think we keep them sharp?" Pepper asked.

Lyra smiled a little. "Don't you?"

"Don't encourage him, please."

Tony frowned. "Hey!"

"I'll do my best," Lyra deadpanned.

"Then we stand a chance of getting along famously. Now to your credentials..." Pepper sat up a little straighter, like a proper patient ready to begin relaying her symptoms. “I’ve already just been given a check-up by another medico of our close acquaintance. His specializations are related to similar research and experiences of yours, but along slightly more nuclear lines.”

Something difficult to read flickered across Lyra’s expression. “Dr. Banner?”

Pepper nodded. “You know of him?”

“I followed his work for some time, before his disappearance. I understand Mr. Stark is to be thanked for bringing him back into active academic circles somewhat.”

“He’s had plenty of reasons to be out of the public eye, for a long time,” Tony confirmed. “I’ve just helped remove a few.”

Lyra nodded, stepping closer to Pepper. “I presume I’m to give you an examination and either provide you information he missed, or prove to be missing some myself in which case you both will try to bring in Dr. Banner on this project instead of my person?”

“Good guess,” Pepper said, smiling a little. “Where should we start?”

“Your most recent charts, if you’ve got them.”

The CEO handed proffered a clipboard with a sheaf of relevant papers thereupon, and then folded her hands in her lap.

Lyra examined the papers, skimming quick but thorough. “You’re not experiencing many obvious side-effects, but it shows here that you did not receive the full procedure? Where did it end?”

“Killian said I wasn’t finished,” Pepper confirmed, “but compared to most of the procedures we’ve found records of, I actually was; he did, however, seem to modify the procedure slightly. I’m not sure why.”  
“Hmm. Ah, yes, you’ve even outlined a side-by-side comparison of the process you underwent compared to the usual foot-soldiers’ experiences,” Lyra murmured, upon finding the outline on one of the late-middle pages. “Fascinating,” she said quietly. “He was utterly mad, Killian.”

“Can you tell what he was trying to do?” Tony asked.

The doctor hummed. “In all the footage that you collected from his projects, Mr. Stark, did any of them include Killian’s own introduction to Extremis? His own use of it, and any subsequent applications of the serum later for maintenance?”

“No, and we did already notice how conspicuous that was,” Tony replied.

“Good.” She tapped the end of a pen against her lower lip briefly, meeting Pepper’s stare. “I think he was trying to perfect a process by which Extremis only had to be applied once, instead of repeatedly strengthened and maintained by later shooting up. It may be that early in the development, he got reckless with his own transformation and was lucky enough to survive and require far fewer, if any, doses of the serum later on. The steps used on you here, Miss Potts, are a little unconventional, and it’s something of a marvel that you survived them.”

Pepper looked a bit pale, but nodded thoughtfully. “I’m aware that I got lucky.” She smiled a little as Tony stepped up behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders, squeezing gently.

For just a moment, Lyra’s brows furrowed a little as she held Pepper’s gaze. “Let us hope so.” She removed the jacket of the well-cut suit she wore, and draped it over another, empty bed behind her, then rolling up her shirt-sleeves. She looked calm and utterly professional the whole while. “If I might examine your neck, please?”  
“Why?” Pepper asked.

“Your adrenals and endocrine systems are being unusually taxed. I’m just going to feel the glands here-” She pointed at her own neck just below its meeting the corner of her jaw on her right side. “-and here.” She pointed to the same location on her left. “Same as I would if you had just a cold, rest assured.”

Pepper nodded. “You may.” She patted one of Tony’s hands, and he reluctantly lowered them.

Lyra reached out to touch, and feel, her eyes focused. “Elevated temperature here, compared to the rest of the skin of your neck. Do you feel any discrepancy?”

“No, I don’t.”

Taking one of Pepper’s hands and brushing her fingers over the area, Lyra asked, “Do you feel it now.”

“That––that’s really weird, I won’t lie,” Pepper said, her expression pinching with sudden concern. “Should I––should we be worried about that?”

“At this degree? No. This is to be expected while you have Extremis in your system, but you should be aware of it, if you are feeling at all stressed or emotionally strained in particular, and perhaps check the feeling of temperature difference. It may reach a temperature capable of burning anyone else before you feel it at your neck consciously, just as you hadn’t noticed it until you applied your fingers now. The heat-based reactions don’t reach the extremities _before_ the main arteries and the endocrine system here, unless it’s being willed so, which takes a bit of practice and/or some major emotional turbulence.”

Pepper nodded thoughtfully. “Good to know.”

“That should help you keep tabs on it a bit without being overly conspicuous as you maintain some more unavoidable aspects of your work schedule.”

At that, Tony frowned even as his lover smiled a bit helplessly and elbowed him.

“I’m not leaving it to you,” she muttered. “You’ll be distracted enough by fixing me, which is more important long-term.”

Tony fidgeted. “Not compared to you possibly exploding.”

“Which is why you’re hiring me, is it not?” Lyra reminded. “Presuming you plan to.”

“If I lose control for some reason, and the worst happens,” Pepper said seriously, “can you actually stop it? Is there anything you could possibly do.”

Lyra considered for a long moment, her expression unreadable and her green eyes looking very keenly focused on her for a few long moments. “Yes.”

“Funny. No one else seems to think that’d be possible,” Tony responded.

“It is.”

“How?” he insisted.

The medico frowned slightly, shaking her head. “I cannot say.”

“That’s not an acceptable answer,” Tony said flatly.

“We all have our share of secrets, Mr. Stark. I will keep my personal ones from you as I would any other employer. They have never interfered with my professional work before, and I will do my level best to keep it that way for my own sake as much as yours,” she countered, her voice smooth and deathly calm, the effect of her professional veneer slightly mussed by the slow, almost threatening way she delivered each syllable. “You can accept a flat-out ‘no’ in answer to that question from every other candidate for this position, or you can accept the only person willing to risk saying ‘yes’ with the caveat that I do not wish to be forced to reveal how.”

“You a mutant or something?” Tony asked casually. “We talked things over with Reed Richards and Iceman from the X-men and they concluded-”

“The mechanisms which cause the heat-effects of Extremis are older than they may seem. Older than any known records of persons with active mutations such as the X-men,” Lyra interrupted. “Much, much older. That said, there are a number of humans with traces of those older things in their genes, particularly some with heritage from certain regions of Scandinavia, and to a slightly lesser extent, Siberia, and Mongolia.”

“You’re unwilling to cite any sources?”

Lyra ran a hand through her hair. “My mother being the only other witness who wasn’t associated with Russian governmental forces or those pretending to be, I cannot, no. I collected as much evidence as I could, but it was seized before I left the country I found it in. My mother’s interpretation was a bit more _religious_ than I was at all comfortable with, for the record.”

Something about that sounded a little off to Tony. “Including evidence for these genetic traces?”

“All of it was taken. I’d be interested to know if S.H.I.E.L.D. has any records of it.”

“Give me a date.”

She did.

“That’s more recent than I thought.”

Lyra shrugged. “I only wish I were farther away from experiences of that time in my life,” she said flatly.

Tony frowned a little. He could relate to that more than he wanted to admit, and something about the stung pride in her look only made that impression stronger. “I’ll look into it.”

“Will you also hire me?”

“Yes,” Tony and Pepper said in unison, glancing at each other as though mildly affronted and startled by the phenomenon.

Lyra smiled at them both, terribly amused. “That’s adorable. And thank you.”

The lovers both seemed uncertain how to respond to that accusation from the likes of this particular person, who was apparently their newest employee.

“Welcome to Stark Industries,” Pepper said after a beat of awkward silence.

Lyra’s smile widened further, looking very bright and sharp.

 

~~

 

"Well?" Natasha didn't bother with normal small-talk, like "hello" or anything.

She also didn't knock or otherwise inform him of her presence and her assassin-skills showed themselves off unnervingly, given just how silently she'd managed to creep up on him in those sharp-looking high-heels.

Tony wasn't ashamed to say he jumped a bit. Anyone in possession of actual reflexes would. "JARVIS, next time I leave the lab door open, please close it."

"Of course, sir."

Natasha shook her head at him a little. "You hired her."

"Yes. So why are you all so interested in her anyway?"

"She might be slightly more of an enigma than we're comfortable with."

"You tell me this now? Seriously?"

"Yes, because if you knew before now, she’d have been able to tell. In fact, she'd think we had claws in you deeper than we actually do. She's... skittish, almost. Not like she's up to something, but like you."

"I'm 'skittish'?"

"About helping S.H.I.E.L.D. or us keeping tabs on you too close?"

The inventor thought about that. "I'd call that more 'active rebellion' than being 'skittish'. Also, I call it, ‘keeping my weapons out of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s hands, yes I really do mean it.’"

"Whatever your ego may call it, the same seems to apply to Dr. Walker."

"I still cannot get over her middle name being 'Sky' for fuck's sake. So what's the enigma?"

"Oh, just tracking down any trace of her existence before a certain date."

"What date?"

"About two months before a certain hammer of extraterrestrial origin landed in New Mexico."

Tony's spine stiffened. "Please don't tell me you think she's an alien?"

"More likely she's got a false identity and is someone's long-term plan for gathering information both biological and bio-technical, and doing things with it. She's very good, very clever, and a genuinely brilliant scientist, but I personally don't think she's American despite her almost suspiciously clean paperwork and other records."

"Suspiciously?"

"There's a paper-trail, but it's skeletal compared to most people her age who make as much use of technology as she does."

"What, are you disturbed to find she doesn't have a Facebook or something?"

"She didn't until a month before the hammer fell. We suspect it was retroactively applied some time after that, but we can’t quite work out how."

Tony sighed. "Can I trust her to help Pepper?"

Natasha considered, humming low in her throat. "I believe so. She did right by Steve, so far as we can tell."

Something about that story, and the way things had fallen together with Maya and Aldrich Killian, made Tony's brain itch. "Yeah," he said, his voice sounding relieved and weary and reassured. He was good at faking that; it made people willing to let subjects drop more than when he let them see his full-fledged paranoia in action. "JARVIS has her under watch now."

"That explains a bit of why we're having more trouble keeping track of her, lately. JARVIS, I begin to think you don't like us."

"I'm simply a very private system, Agent Romanov. I prefer to keep to myself."

Natasha smiled a little, shaking her head. "I personally want to help you, you know. All of you."

"I know,” Tony assured. “And thank you.”

"She's the best, intellect and skill-wise, and insofar as discretion. I think, of your options, she's the least likely to leak anything to us."

"She's leaked to you before."

"Nothing about Hansen, though. All the evidence she gave us pointed away from her."

"Toward Killian?"

"She never met him, but the web led back his way more so than Hansen's. He just covered his tracks a bit too well."

Tony nodded. "Good to know."

"You still don't trust her, though."

"Not a bit."

"Gut feeling?"

The inventor ran his fingers over the arc reactor in his chest, feeling a little more secure for still having it there despite plans already in motion to free himself of it fairly soon, once Pepper was cured. "Something like that. She's... familiar. I can't figure out how or why, but some of her mannerisms, her expressions..." He tapped his temple. "I know I've seen them before. And it wasn't a massively positive experience, I don't think."

"Well, if you remember her and she's not an old flame, I'd assume so."

Tony frowned at her. "She might've been a... colleague?"

The assassin raised her eyebrows, disbelief evident.

"What?" he asked, innocently. "I remember women's names and faces better after a short encounter if I don't sleep with them, actually. If you must know."

"Because you're used to them being notable exceptions."

"Because before Pepper, those ones used to be in the 'more interesting' category because they didn't care about whether or not I actually liked them, and were thus a little more likely to be themselves."

Natasha made a thoughtful noise. "Fair enough."

“Oh, got anything you can tell me about Dr. Walker having a conflict with Russian governmental forces sometime... well, it was about two months after Thor’s crash, now I think of it. Anything?”

The spy hummed and nodded gravely. “If you haven’t found it yet as you’re prone to hack, that actually suggests we’re running behind on updates made to some of our databases. I’ll have to ask someone about that; although, to be fair, you’ve not had to research much to do with Hydra.”

Tony’s eyebrows raised. “Hydra?”

“Whatever research she had been doing, it was more impressive than anything in her career before that might have suggested her capable of. The ‘government’ personnel who confiscated all of her computers, all of her research, and most of her luggage that wasn’t clothing or toiletries, were not who they seemed. They were mercenaries, mostly ex-KGB, contracted by Hydra to snatch up whatever she’d been working on. We still aren’t sure ourselves what it was, but I’ve made a dozen revisits to Siberia more over the past year trying to find any leads on it. All indications have been toward something being mined, but we’re not at all clear what.”

“Mined?” Tony’s eyebrows raised. “She said something about human genetics.”

“Oh?” Natasha’s stare was suddenly sharp and intent.

Suddenly aware she’d never let him get a moment’s rest until he elaborated at least a little, the inventor sighed. “Look, she claimed she could bring Pepper back from a possible meltdown scenario, too. It’s all increasingly sketchy.”

The spy’s brow furrowed. “All indications have been that-”

“I _know_ ,” Tony snapped. “But she’s the only one so far with the balls to tell me there’s a chance that might not be the case, and I’m understandably more willing than usual to grasp at straws, here.”

“What else did she tell you?  
Tony repeated the bits about the x-gene, historical records, and genetics.

“But she didn’t infer that she herself has these genes?”

“No, but she’s run into them, and I get the feeling those encounters were a bit heated, and she worked out a way to... combat it.”

“Which she won’t elaborate on,” Natasha muttered.

“I can’t help but think there’s something a bit strange, here,” Tony murmured. “One of her first pings on S.H.I.E.L.D. radar? Hydra snapped it up so fast even you and S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t get a good look at it. Next two major blips? Something she made for AIM as an intern made re-application of the Extremis drug easier to mobilize, and then one of her dissertations is on the work of Professor Erskine and sparks off just the right lines of scientific inquiry for someone on the other side of the world to come up with a viable serum to counter-act Steve’s super-ness. Who the fuck am I dealing with here, Natasha, seriously?”

“Someone with talent on par with the late Maya Hansen who didn’t come from a wealthy enough family for the legal representation and fighting power against the sort of encroachment and co-opting of designs and ideas you’ve been fighting against ever since Afghanistan, with your own inventions,” the spy said quietly. “That’s the optimistic interpretation.”

“So how do I know she hasn’t sold out like Maya?”

“You could notice she still drives a Honda from the 90’s.”

Tony considered that for a moment. “Not exactly pristine, I take it?”

“There’s reason that she’s not already hired by someone else you could just ask to borrow her from. She’s shrewd and has some independent wealth, but not enough to support the sort of hobbies yours does.” She looked pointedly around the lab, with all of its extraordinarily expensive equipment.

“How much did you all offer her?”

“More than Dr. Hansen was getting paid by Killian.”

Tony whistled. “And she turned that down, then. Well, all right. I’ll give her a chance. Not trust, but a chance.”

She elbowed his upper arm lightly. "Take care of yourself, then. If you're in trouble, let me know, and tell me right off the bat whether you need just me, or the rest of the cavalry too."

He smiled faintly. "Thanks. And tell Barton to stop emailing me pictures of lolcats in armor."

"No promises he'll actually listen. He's been bored lately."

"Yeah, I heard: wrist and ankle injuries, right?"

She nodded. "Expect more spam, but know you are not alone."

 

~~

 

The key to a good lie, is a good character capable of elaborating on a whim without contradiction. Dr. Lyra Walker was one of the most elaborate constructs Loki had come up with in ages, along with the plans he’d laid out for her, and for himself.

Loki the prisoner, the fallen king, the returned exile now in chains in Asgard, was even now getting up to mischief in the hours of sleep, and occasionally when a powerful visitor or two could slip past the guards and wards of his prison to answer him in person, and prove to him what they had to offer.

He smiled at them all very kindly, and listened to them, and never suggested once that he was anywhere other than precisely where he wanted to be.

Because in truth, these days, both halves of him were.

And he was waiting.

 

~~

 

“So what are you doing now, then? I thought you were done meddling with the Avengers,” Amora teased. She was one of few old friends whom he still valued, not only because she had always been comforting as a thorn in Thor’s side over the years, but also for how little she truly cared about Asgard. She had been thrilled by his exile, congratulating him on his liberation from the stuffy old Realm Eternal. Then she’d seen his haunted look, and offered him a great deal of alcohol, but not too many questions.

She still knew only a very little of his plans, here and there: never enough to put it all together into the single whole that it all truly was, but she was amused enough, since she had early on refused to be involved, which he had respected, as a way of silently  thanking her for the volumes of things he could never say aloud about acceptance and not feeling utterly alone, which she had so far given him without hesitation.

Loki sipped his mead and said nothing, at first, to her newest inquiry.

The Enchantress elbowed him a little. “Don’t be fussy.”

“Fine.” He shook his head a little, amused. “Of all of the Avengers, Tony Stark is the most likely to have worked out that the invasion in New York City failed intentionally. He even suggested as much in a press conference not too long after the event, which was carefully edited out of most broadcasts the way so many little things he says while particularly hung-over often are. I want to be certain that is all he has so far worked out, and I want to see up close just what further mischief he might be useful for wreaking. Stark is also a highly visible public figure, and an Avenger. In his spotlight is the last place A certain Victor von Doom would think to look for me, and he has come too close to catching onto my plans of late.” _And my person_ , he thought, with grudging respect. Moreso than the Avengers or S.H.I.E.L.D., likely because he was far better organized and in possession of more disciplined staff than either of them, Doctor Doom was a threat to Loki’s plans––not because he would do anything conveniently heroic, but because he was not the sort of leader to ever be content while any machinations on the scale Loki was operating, existed beyond his control. Doom was shrewd, and patient, and had enough resources that he could throw things off-balance in a number of places prematurely, if he caught onto Loki’s scent in too many places, and put too many pieces of the puzzle together. That, as well as keeping Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. progress in Siberia at a stand-still via remote alterations to the chess-boards on both sides, necessitated his spending a few months laying relatively low.

“He’s also close to the Hulk you’re so keen on avoiding. I never thought I’d see the day you’d run from something such a pretty shade of green.”

“He is closer to your preferred shades than mine, in that regard.” He smiled charmingly at her. “And more susceptible to your magics, perhaps.”

“You have nothing you might offer me that I currently desire,” she chided.

“Perhaps I might find you something.”

“Until then, save your sweet-talking for ladies and men more eligible.” She smirked a little. “How was that affair with the mortal lady by the way? The life-mage.”

 _Biologist_ was not a common term in Asgard.

“It was fairly entertaining, for a brief diversion. It is a pity she was lost; she could have been very useful, with a little more ambition of her own, and some better application of political maneuvering.”

“So it’s not her sitting in your cell for you in Asgard now?”

Loki snorted and rolled his eyes. “No, it is not. I keep telling you: I’m not rotating out replacements.”

“Then how are you doing it? You’ve fooled even Odin for this long, and so you _must_ tell me.” She leaned against his shoulder and fluttered her eyelashes. “Please?”

Loki kissed her brow briefly, and chastely, as a brother might. “No,” he responded lightly, with no little measure of teasing.

“Is it life-threatening? If it were anything more minor, anything I myself might try, I’d have gotten at least a hint from you by now, for you love making the rest of us feel inferior for not thinking up big tricks with but little mischief and magic.”

The trickster snorted, but didn’t deny the accusation. “It’s key benefits, in lack of detectability and general maintenance alike, do have their roots in the sheer insanity of my undertaking. I wouldn’t have attempted it at all if not for what I found out upon my visit to Jotunnheim.” He could still remember making the decision, feeling manic and self-destructive and like there was too much to hold inside himself alone, after he had been just as unable to life the the hammer as Thor had, that day long ago.

“Which you also haven’t told me of,” Amora mused, but with a little less teasing.

“I notably have not.”

The Enchantress sighed, letting her head fall back to hang over the back of the couch they rested on. “I will keep watching, you know; I have little to do myself, these days, and I’ve missed the presence of another god about. You let me in enough that I can now see hint of the show you’re putting on, and I can tell that it’s on such a scale that it might shake the foundations of Asgard, if that’s your goal.” She opened one eye, her head tilting enough she cold see him with it through her artfully mussed blonde hair. “Is that your goal?”

Loki considered that for a few moments, genuinely thoughtful, as he finished his mead. “My goal? No, not with this game, not quite...” He smirked, wide and toothy. “That said, it might still happen as an incidental, but amusing, side-effect.”

“I do love your shows.”

“This will indeed be an impressive one.”

“Hopefully more impressive than that disgraceful invasion.”

“That was deliberate disgrace.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell, with you.”

The trickster rolled his eyes. “There’s no pleasing some people.”

She laughed at him. He let her, smiling a bit more himself as he let it relax him.

 

~~

 

Pepper was used to being ignored a little, or not observed as closely when someone like Tony Stark was in the room. She had been an only child who excelled at the art of unobtrusiveness, as she’d grown up, until she wore it, and her own intelligence both, like a winning combination of selective invisibility-cloak and terrifying weaponry. It had taken Tony a while to decipher how she did it, and he didn’t miss much these days, the way he had early in their relationship, before they had quite gotten used to relying on one another in a capacity aside from the professional.

Under the polished professionalism, she was catty, and clever, and had a core of steel, but most people considered her the relatively harmless one, until they overstepped a bit too far and clashed with a bit of that steel first-hand.

Pepper had presumed Dr. Lyra would be the same, just as Natasha had been (if only at the beginning) or perhaps Dr. Banner.

She had been mistaken.

“You’ve been staring at me for nearly a quarter of an hour now, Miss Potts,” Lyra said, still having made no move to look at her. She had, in fact, been staring at a series of complex programs running across the displays of three large StarkPanels, and hadn’t so much as turned her head a little. Her hands were long-fingered and graceful, as they danced their way across those screens: shaping, changing perspective, adding notes, and making occasional corrections.

“I’m surprised you noticed me. How did you?”

Turning to face Pepper with a hint of a smirk, Lyra explained, “I heard the door open, and the room got slightly warmer.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“Well, to be fair, it’s quite cold in here, and you’ve been standing there a while.”

“So I shouldn’t be worried?”

Lyra stepped closer. “Your hand, please?” She held one palm up.

Standing now, Pepper became aware just how tall this doctor actually was. They were eye to eye, with the darker lady in flats and Pepper herself in heels that added at least an inch and a half to her height. She proffered a hand. “Not my neck, this time?”

“I wouldn’t want you to think I was taking liberties,” Lyra teased lightly, shooting a her a look from under her lashes briefly, her head bent down slightly to examine Pepper’s palm. “You are a little feverish, but not dangerously so. Stressful meeting?”

“Press conference.”

“Ah. With Mr. Stark?”

“Without.”

The doctor hummed softly, her hands very cool as they wrapped around Pepper’s for a moment, her expression purely thoughtful, focused. “You’re still not relaxing at all.”

“Well, I hardly know you and your hands are a bit cold.”

Lyra cleared her throat softly and stepped back with a slightly more closed expression. “My apologies.”

“I’m not––sorry, I-”

“I meant for my cold hands,” the doctor said, smiling a little. “Come here, I have something that may help you.” She waved a little, inviting her further into the small laboratory space Stark Industries had spared her. It was small, but very well-equipped, and very private. “Sit, please.”

“It’s like a dentist’s chair,” Pepper muttered, but took a seat in the slightly monstrous, but still sleek and Stark-style modern chair.

“Perhaps in the office of a dentist to the stars in L.A. with an obsession with bleeding-edge modern design,” Lyra commented.

Pepper laughed a little. “And leather-work by Mercedez-Benz.”

“I’m going to apply a mild local anesthetic here, just topical.” She was behind the chair now, and her hands slid down, cool fingertips moving over the base of Pepper’s neck up a little to the base of her skull. “It should help, though. I spent the morning formulating it specifically to avoid any side-effects like dizziness or tiredness. It’s a bit of a modification of some migraine treatments.”

“How did you come up with that?” Pepper mused.

“I used to get headaches a lot as a child, brought on by stress,” Lyra murmured.

That sounded more truthful than half the doctor’s interview responses, Pepper noted, letting her eyes drift shut. “You have poor circulation, too?”

“I did apologize for my hands.”

“It feels really good, actually, so don’t.”

Lyra gave a low, slightly chagrined laugh. “I suppose it would.”

“How badly am I burning up? Really?”

“I’m not in any pain, and you’re not warming me up much, really. Take comfort, there.” Lyra’s fingers pulled away, then returned with a salve. “This will also feel very cold in a moment.”

Pepper made a noise of acknowledgement, then gasped a little as the cold shot all the way down her spine, very suddenly. “Oh my god.”

“You’re all right?”

“Yes, just––that’s––wow, that’s potent stuff.”

“Hmm. Odd. I’d like to get a few readings, then. Where do you feel it?”

“Everywhere.”

Another low hum, not worried, but a little fascinated. “I had hoped for that, but hadn’t been overly optimistic.”

“Is this to do with your secrets again?”

Lyra’s hands moved away and she emitted a low chuckle, stepping around the chair and wiping her hands. She looked a bit tired, and warily curious. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

“You suppose?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Sure. And I’m queen of France.”

“Did Stark buy you a whole country? I wouldn’t have expected him to choose France of all places,” Lyra mused airily.

Pepper sighed. “No. He’d try for Italy, first, not counting the Vatican.”

“More affordable, less likely to start another French revolution, too.”

“You’re not supposed to know us this well, yet.”

“You really shouldn’t expect me to be limited to being just what I’m supposed to be, Miss Potts. It’s the same courtesy I extend to you.”

“Really?” Pepper had long ago perfected the art of the mocking, and openly disbelieving stare.

“You’re far sharper than you let on to people at first, but I know how useful it can be to remain unnoticed.” She smiled a bit ruefully. “I’ve run into places I perhaps should have been more unobtrusive, but I can hardly contain myself all the time.”

“Your wit benefits from that, though, I think,” Pepper mused.

“Why thank you, Miss Potts.”

“Call me Pepper, please.”

Lyra smiled and extended a hand. “Thank you, Peppr. I’m Lyra. It’s very nice to meet you.”

“You should have dinner with me,” Pepper said, accepting the handshake.

The doctor’s eyebrows raised and she looked sincerely surprised for the first time Pepper had seen so far. “Pardon?”

“Tony is going to be in the lab, and I know it. I’m planning to bring in something, and try to lure him out of his trance-like state of focus. That’s easier to do when he’s a bit off-balance by someone unexpected in his lab, especially if they’re with me at my own invitation. Also, I know you could likely provide him a bit of helpful information for his reverse-engineering of Extremis, but he’s hardly going to ask you this soon, especially since this is all still–– _new_. He’s not comfortable asking for much help yet, other than those bits I see that he’s sending you.” She gestured in the direction of the displays closer to the center of the room.

Slowly, Lyra began to smirk, a glitter of mischief in her bright green eyes making them seem a little wilder. “Yes, he’s sent me only a little, and I’ve sent more back, but gotten no response, yet. I would love to help you disconcert him a little, and perhaps do some showing off, yes.”

“He hasn’t actually told me why he’s not consulting you on this yet, not properly. I get the feeling you know exactly why, though. You should tell me.”

Lyra proffered a hand, helping Pepper up from the chair. Her smirk faded, but some of the mischief lingered a little, despite her coolly professional expression having otherwise returned in force. “I might have inquired as to why he is inclined to remove Extremis instead of stabilizing it. He did not like the question.”

“Ah.” Pepper’s eyes were downcast for a moment as she considered her answer, then met the doctor’s gaze again. “I’m not sure I would want it, even if that seemed an equally safe option.”

“But he doesn’t know you’re conflicted?”

“I never said I was conflicted.”

Lyra’s eyebrows slowly raised.

Pepper’s eyes narrowed a little. “Stop that.” With a slight sigh, Lyra pulled Pepper’s hand again between her own, getting a feel for her temperature. The red-haired woman sighed a little. “It’s that obvious?”

“To me, yes, but only a little.”

“Your hands aren’t so cold, now.”

Lyra nodded a little. “I blame you,” she murmured absently. “For one you’re less warm, in return. There’s less contrast, now.”

Pepper nodded. “Just for the record, are you actually human?”

“Is anyone?”

“That’s a new way of dodging it, I guess, but not encouraging.”

Lyra looked up at her very seriously. Quiet, but not quite hesitant, she said, “I’m not human, no. I would appreciate it if you didn’t pass that on, however. Not even to Stark, please, if you will.”

“You’re in danger because of it, I’m guessing?”

“Oh, yes,” Lyra murmured. “But then, I’m usually in some form of danger.”

“A lot of your own making.”  
The doctor smiled, quick and sharp and probably more sincere than she’d intended. “Mostly, yes.”

“Are you here to hurt Tony?” Pepper asked, a bit more seriously.

Lyra looked up again from the other woman’s hand, releasing her hold there. “I am here because I’m curious, and capable, and not loyal to any of his allies, or his enemies.”

“So you haven’t made up your mind, you’re saying?”

Something flickered behind those cat-like green eyes: something deeper than the flickers of amused surprise and curiosity before. It was something a little more dangerous, and captivated in an almost-reluctant way. _Very good. Very unexpected. What more is there to you_? “You’re very astute, Miss Pepper Potts. I had told myself not to underestimate you, but still you do surprise me.”

“So you haven’t made up your mind, yes,” Pepper concluded.

“I haven’t.” Lyra smiled a bit more wickedly, then. “Dinner, you said?”

“Yes.” Pepper smiled back, a little interested herself, too. She couldn’t quite manage a feeling of foreboding, and perhaps that was a bit of the lingering feeling of indestructibility from Extremis affecting her, but it felt––good. A little thrilling, even. “We can take my car from here. Seven?”

“Perfect. Thank you, Pepper.”

Nodding to her, Pepper turned and strode out of the lab.

 

~~

 

Tony Stark was many things. “Territorial” was among them; it might even belong in the top twenty on a list of his most prominent character traits. He knew this. Furthermore, he knew that Pepper knew it.

So when she brought Lyra Walker into his lab, he was a bit put-out.

He glared at her a little as she and Lyra set down a large tray laden with what appeared to be a vast amount of sushi from his favorite chef in town. Truly unfair.

In response, Pepper only beamed at him like a cheshire cat.

It did things to him when she did that. He cleared his throat a little. “So. You’re here to lure me into socialization.”

“She is,” Lyra offered. “I’m here because I want to know what you’re working on and how far you’ve gotten, for the sake of my patient.”

Tony shot her a scorching glare. “Pardon me?”

“I’m your medical consult. You’ve yet to consult me. I worry.”

The inventor shot Pepper a questioning look, and she raised both hands, palms-forward.

“I just invited her over for dinner to get diplomatic negotiations under way, complete with sushi peace-offering. And also, yes, lure you into some socialization, if only of a male posturing sort.”

Lyra snorted, covering her mouth with a hand briefly, in a way that didn’t cover up her amusement in the least.

Tony’s frown deepened. “Oh god, you’ve made her an ally. I knew I should’ve stuck with Bruce.”

“He’s already my ally too, sweetie,” Pepper shot back.

“Dammit,” Tony sighed, and abandoned his perch, approaching the table they’d appropriated for sushi, and taking chopsticks when they were offered.

Lyra summoned a pair from seemingly out of nowhere, leaving Pepper shooting her a slightly curious look. “Coat pocket. I got in the habit of carrying them while working in Malaysia for a while. Long story.” She plucked up a piece of nigiri and popped it into her mouth. Her eyes widened a bit. “This is one of the best things I’ve ever tasted,” she said, very quietly.

“Yeah, best sushi chef in the U.S., she is,” Tony mused.

“She’s a personal friend,” Pepper added.

“I may have to marry her,” Lyra said, her expression still oddly open. “My parents would be scandalized.”

“Even your mother? She sounded fairly open-minded,” Tony asked.

Lyra cringed a little. “She... wouldn’t be. She knew me the better.” She picked up another piece and made a small, slightly indecent noise in her throat.

Pepper and Tony glanced at each other sidelong and looked away quickly, both seeming a little disturbed to have been caught looking for the other’s reaction. Tony was the first to actually do a slight double-take on it, raising his eyebrows at Pepper, who glanced at him again and may have blushed slightly. Tony’s eyes widened further. He set down his chopsticks, causing Lyra to notice his slightly disbelieving expression and Pepper determinedly looking away.

“Personal friend, you say?” Lyra prompted lightly, causing them to both look at her again. “Is she taken? Seriously, I’m working out how to best propose to her as we speak, and I want to know if I’ve got competition.”

“I thought she was straight.”

Pepper coughed delicately behind her hand. “She prefers to keep relationships casual, particularly with women. She makes a bit more of a show with her male partners, for the sake of appeasing her family, but most of those men are actually gay.”

Tony made a thoughtful noise. “That... actually explains a lot. And a few times she may have thrown things at me.”

“She’s very kind, though, and funny,” Pepper said. “She’s also never had any qualms remaining a friend of ours after she and I both moved on a couple of years ago.”

Tony made a small choking noise around a bite of sashimi. “Pardon?”

“I did mention it to you.”

“Was I sober?”

“Well, no,” Pepper admitted. “And it was before...” She gestured vaguely.

“I would kind of hope so,” Tony muttered.

“While you’re pleasantly off-balance, thank you Pepper, how far are you on the reverse-engineering and where are you hitting the most resistance so far?” Lyra cut in.

Tony swore. Of course she would bring up a startling personal anecdote for such a gloriously nefarious reason as getting his guard down. No wonder he loved this woman. “Bruce would not go along with this. It would be against bro-code.”

“He totally would, Tony,” Pepper chimed, raising a hand in Lyra’s direction. “Good catch, by the way.”

Lyra high-fived her casually, and picked up another piece of sushi.

“Oh god, it’s worse than I thought,” Tony groaned.

“Get talking, metal man,” Lyra teased.

For some reason, that rang a distant bell in the inventor’s head. “Metal man?”

“I’m a biologist at heart. Engineers are all metal-men to me.”

“Your work for AIM was more engineering than-”

“At _heart_ , I said,” Lyra insisted. “I can make machines if pressed, but I prefer working with the stuff of life.”

Tony frowned a little. “That’s... unfair. JARVIS, tell her it’s unfair.”

“Quite so, Dr. Walker.”

Tilting her head up to stare ceiling-ward. “Sorry to offend,” she said, perfectly calm, as though she conversed with the world’s most advanced Artificial Intelligence systems on a daily basis. “You are indeed a marvel quite beyond modern biological science’s current abilities insofar as scope. Artificial life, in comparison, is still in more of its infancy on earth.”

“Thank you,” JARVIS said.

“Yes. Thank you,” Tony muttered, still glaring a little.

“Do you feel you’ve finished your posturing now?” Lyra asked lightly.

Again, the inventor swore. Because dammit, she was right. He sighed. “Yes. Fine.” He took another bit of sushi, savored it for a few long moments, and then began to explain some of his findings. He relaxed a little when Pepper sat beside him on the bench, a little less feverishly warm of a presence than she’d been that morning. “Let’s talk biomechanics.”

“Let’s do,” Lyra concurred.

 

~~

 

Pepper wasn’t at all surprised when the conversation shifted into rapid-fire discussion of concepts that barely had names, or had only names Tony or Lyra made up as they went along, occasionally pausing to argue about those linguistics (“I’m not calling it a ‘heat-up-o-matic’ gene, Stark.” “Well, you should.”) but never for very long before diving back into the main discussion at hand.

Pepper stuck around through dinner, keeping up and teasing them both when she caught one or the other of them getting a bit too catty or uncooperative. The third time she managed it with Lyra, she could’ve sworn the doctor shot her a wary, almost disturbed look, as though it had only just sunk in just how artfully the red-haired woman was playing them as they circled each other and growled about different theoretical approaches and genetic anomalies that could or could not be handled in certain ways.

By the time they were far gone into the more technical aspects, the sushi had been cleared (somewhat surprisingly, given how much they’d started with, but Lyra could casually eat more than most full-grown men, apparently) and all practical scheduling, and life-plan ideas were being dropped in favor of design and application of the anti-Extremis, Pepper interrupted them long enough to kiss Tony briefly and tell him goodnight before leaving. She paused to squeeze Lyra’s hand and smile at her coolly as well. “You both require sleep at some point, please recall.”

The two scientists watched her go.

Lyra tilted her head just slightly, taking a moment to enjoy the view, and perhaps quietly marvel a little. Perhaps the things Odin had always said about humans weren’t all just bland moralizing paired with romantic optimism; there was something darkly dangerous to them that the gallows-god hadn’t added to his words, something to do with candle-flames, brief lives, and burning. Thor could have used that warning, not that it would have helped.

“Obligatory reminder that she’s taken,” Tony said flatly, noticing her stare.

“You are a luckier man than I ever realized.”

“Yep. I still don’t trust you, you know.”

“I did notice.”

“Pepper seems like she might be starting to.”

“Do you not trust her judgement?” Lyra turned and met his stare again, openly challenging.

“I do. That’s the problem.” He narrowed his eyes. “Because I’ve seen you somewhere before and I don’t think it was just offering you a drink.”

“I’m flattered, but you’re dreaming,” Lyra countered.

“Not at the moment, because Pepper left before either of you got naked. So. Where do I know you from?”

“You never ‘knew’ me really. If anything, I might believe we’ve met before at a conference, as I may hazily recall, but-”

“Lie.”

“Oh?” She shot him a curious look.

Tony grinned, bright and brittle. “Yes.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you like me.”

“Perhaps.”

“You find me mostly amusing, but arrogant enough to grate when you’re busy holding your tongue a bit. You’re holding back, which frustrates you a bit, which makes you look even _more_ familiar.” He clicked his tongue. “Wherever I’ve seen you before, and I never forget a satisfactorily angry face, you were _really ticked off_ at me. That’s what I’ve worked out so far, watching you here.”

Lyra smiled a little. “You really did offer me a drink, though.”

“I do that to angry people I want to tick off a little more.”

“Why ever would you wish to anger me, Stark?”

“Tony,” the inventor corrected. He narrowed his eyes a little. “You had an odd accent for a second there.”

“I lived in England for a few years. Some things stuck.”

“Not sure that sounded English.”

“There’s a lot about me you seem very uncertain of,” Lyra mused. “What is it that you think I’m after? If I wanted your technology, I’d be wearing or carrying something to catch images of it, or data from your machines, but that would be a foolhardy thing to attempt in plain sight of the likes of you, as well as your charming A.I., really. If I wanted to harm Pepper, I could have already done so, and would never make the mistake of letting you see my face, given how likely you would be to track me down to the ends of the earth to find out why, and possibly kill me, given you’d be without your primary moral compass. I would be an idiot to target her, after you’ve already gotten a good long look at me, Tony.”

“So is it me you’re after?”

“Well, I admit that you _could_ be useful, but I’ve not yet decided.”

That chilled Tony down to the bone. “Excuse me?”

“I’m being very honest, briefly, to assess just how keen you really are at discerning my truths from my lies.” She smiled. “No pressure.”

“You think I might be useful how?”

Lyra shrugged. “You’re also quite dangerous, of course. Getting close enough to you to learn more about how your mind works inevitably gives you a chance to do the same to myself.” She shot him a curious look through narrowed eyes. “You’ve worked out a few things already that I had thought would go unnoticed for rather longer.”

“Like?”

The doctor only smiled more widely. “Now, why would I tell you that?”

Tony saw red for a second, and took a deep, soothing breath to keep himself from saying anything regrettable and not-himself like _because you enjoy having all of your bones un-shattered_. He rubbed a hand over his face for a moment, calculating. _Think, don’t lash out first; come on, Stark, you’re not Batman_. He met the doctor’s gaze again. “I’m not big on having people as close to people I care about as you are right now, who admit to possibly planning to _use_ me.”

“You now will be watching me more closely, however. So will JARVIS. I’ll be able to get away with far less.” _No more testing cloaking and other stealth spells at various secure points throughout your home or Stark Industries, I suppose. I really should find out where and how you learned to detect such things so very quickly since New York._ “And you may even limit my access to things you don’t wish me to see.”

“You’re trying to trick me into trusting you by reassuring me I’ve got you made?”

“You could destroy me easily, Tony Stark, but Dr. Lyra Walker, small and not the most significant figure in the scientific community, what could she do? Oh, she could hurt you, but not destroy you.”

“So who are you working for?”

“Myself. And, for the time being, you, while I’m interested.”

Tony considered. He thought for a few long moments about what Natasha had told him, and about the odd cracks in this woman’s expression as she’d talked about things older than mutants, older than civilization, that she’d been studying. He thought about the void over New York City, and what he’d glimpsed through it, just briefly. He shut his eyes for a moment. “ _Okay_.” His eyes opened again. “Okay. So. Who are you?”

“I am myself. And your employee, if I might remind you.”

“Oh, trust me, I’m having trouble forgetting. I mean––I’m Tony Stark, and it’s clear you already have me mostly worked out, but not quite. You’re Dr. Lyra Skywalker-”

She snorted, but didn’t correct him.

“-and I don’t have a clue why you’re helping me.”

Lyra smiled a little. “I’m biding my time, waiting for a few things that don’t concern you at all yet. Not unless you wind up entangled in them somewhere further down the line, but this, here, with your Pepper, should be past before then. I have time, and I am here on earth these days, so I might as well spend it with interesting people. And I do, on occasion, enjoy being helpful while infuriating heroes.”

“That’s the most sincere thing I’ve heard you say since we met, I think.”

Lyra held his gaze for a long, thoughtful moment, her expression a careful mask. Then she looked down, and laughed very quietly, almost bitterly. “I suppose it is.”

“Can you at least tell me why I get the sense that as soon as you leave, if Pepper is still awake, I’m going to find myself in a painfully serious conversation?”

Amusement fading, Lyra nodded. “Did you wonder if she might not want to be wholly rid of it?”

Tony stood very still. “I did.”

“Why does that idea frighten you so?”

“Because I watched over a dozen of them explode.”

“Is that all?”

“You are not my therapist.”

“You have a therapist?”

“... No.”  
“Well, it’s not my area of expertise anyway.”

They stood in silence for a few long seconds, tapping away at their respective displays. It was a heavy variety of quiet: too expectant to be anything but stifling.

“Does she want to keep it?” Tony asked.

“I think that’s what you both need to discuss. I don’t think she knows.”

Tony ran a hand through his hair. “Shit.”

“You don’t either, I take it?”

“Not your business.”

“True. You aren’t my patient. She is. And the decision should be hers.”

“I know.”

Lyra looked at him, shrewdly appraising.

“Stop that. You don’t get to do that.”

“I’m merely observing.”

“You’re getting in my head, is what you’re doing.”

“I consider that to be a mutual courtesy. You’ve been trying to get into mine all night, Tony,” she countered.

“Yeah, but you’re not broken open. Have some goddamn courtesy.”

Lyra considered that, glancing ceiling-ward thoughtfully. Then she glanced at him again. “I think you have other concerns to attend to then.”

“I do.”

“Then you should walk me out before lecturing me on manners.”

Tony grinned a bit at that. “I’m not known for being supremely polite.”

“I am, but only to strangers. You’re getting less strange the longer we stay in the same room.”

“I’m always a fathoms-deep well of strangeness. Don’t tell me I’m ever getting less strange. I have a reputation to maintain.”

“I don’t.” She rose to her feet. “Pepper drove me, incidentally.”

“Ah. So I have the choice of lending you a ridiculously expensive car, or sharing an awkward drive back to your more usual car?”

“Yes.”

Tony grimaced, and headed over to a small cabinet. He pulled out a set of keys. “These are to the Audi. Don’t fuck with her.”

“I’m not that kind of girl.”

“Don’t fuck anyone in the car either. It’s Italian leather.”

She rolled her eyes at him and extended a hand, palm-up.

He tossed her the keys and the caught them without effort, turning on her heel. “Goodnight, Tony.”

“Get out of my house.”

She laughed at him. He considered it a bad sign that her laughter only made him grin helplessly. Then he steeled himself, swearing a bit more. The very worst, he reminded himself, were the likable ones.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki has a number of irons in a number of fires, and one or two of them get uncomfortably close to tracking him down. Tony Stark has trouble taking a joke when the joke sounds more honest than it should. Also, the trickster's working vacation may have come with unforeseen risks Loki hadn't even considered himself to be vulnerable to; Amora, however, won't quite let him ignore it.

The real trouble, Loki reflected, was with Pepper Potts.

She watched Lyra closely, with a calm and oddly appealing empathy. She was not so aloof as the likes of Frigga had been about such things in Asgard, either. Pepper Potts was outspoken, quietly sharp, and didn’t need weaponry or tools to take people apart, little by little, moment by moment. She had no illusions about Tony Stark because he’d never bothered constructing any for her in their early professional relationship and she seemed to find most of his flaws to fall into the categories of “requiring disapproval” (moderate to extreme) which she handled with the expertise of a surgeon and was similarly never too light or too deep when cutting with a purpose, or “oddly endearing” which she would mock lightly at while smiling; and yet, there were depths to her Loki himself found difficult to fathom, even after a week of administering maintenance to her homeostasis and arguing advanced biological engineering with Tony Stark. 

Pepper Potts was involved with a man whose carelessness had killed millions of people over the years, an iron-monger whose nickname (worn with pride, back then) had been the Merchant of Death. She had been an integral part of the same company, the same corporate machine, and in turn bore some of that responsibility. She had been the filter through which Tony Stark had gotten much of his pressing information on a daily basis, and she had organized his schedule to fit both his whims and her own judgement. While she shouldered far less blame than the Merchant of Death or Stark Industries as a whole, she was such an integral part of both of them, and so sharp, so astute, that she had been just as deliberately unaware of some aspects of the place as Tony Stark himself had been.

It was not possible that she was unaware of this, that she had not had her own struggle to come to terms with who and what she was in the world and the blood on her hands that had also stained all of her paychecks. That, more than anything, hid behind her gentle smiles too far for Loki to quite grasp. He saw only occasional glimpses.

Until gentle, fiercely strong and temperate Pepper, began to unravel a little further, as the days dragged on.

Lyra noticed. It was her current occupation, after all: to stay near enough to Pepper Potts throughout the day to be within reach if the worst should happen, while also remaining out of the way and looking over some of Tony’s  work on the Extremis-reversal serum, when he sent it her way.

After that first week, she emerged from her lab and became another elegant fixture in Pepper’s office, seated on a decorative couch on the south wall with the windows to her left, and a couple of StarkPanel touch-interfaces on stands when she needed more than her tablet. The view was better, and the parade of personnel and activity more interesting, when she looked up from work and arguments-via-text with Tony Stark. Pepper held few meetings there, but took many of her calls, and people barged in on occasion to make themselves feel more important, of course.

It was after an example from that latter category, a pair of passionate-voiced journalists, that Loki discovered a few things that were more interesting to him than the trickster would ever care to admit. Accusations of past bloodshed, war-mongering, and the like were thrown about, and Pepper hardly batted an eye, her expression remaining calm and solemn and very, very cold.

“When will Mr. Stark and yourself, as well as the rest of this company, Miss Potts, be held accountable for what was done to thousands by this company?” the male of the pair asked. He had a thick beard and a loud suit.

Pepper rose to her feet slowly. “There is no way for us to be held accountable. There is no way for us to ‘atone’ for what we have done publicly because the price for each of us, when we discovered what hubris and hopeful trust in the wrong people had led us into, and this company into, under the influence of Obadiah Stane and his contemporaries––it couldn’t be met. There could be no _price_ for that, because the people hurt were without price, as all human life is. Under Obadiah, we were treated kindly, lavished in undeserved luxuries, as your colleague said, and so we turned more of a blind eye than we ever should have to what went on below the surface of that. Mr. Stark and I have a number of non-publicized charities we have created, and which we fund, through which we reach out to the parts of the world our mistakes have most damaged, and offer help without political or war-like caveats. This is how I, myself, have chosen to handle the news that my hands were bloodied by my past ignorance.”

An alert notice, on her tablet display, caught Lyra’s attention: from the wristband Pepper wore to monitor her vitals. It indicated that Pepper’s temperature was rising, a bit too sharply, and already nearing temperatures a human not chock-full of Extremis would be incapacitated by. She considered saying something, but saw Pepper steel herself, and the increase slowed visibly: such control, the trickster did want to see.

“What more do you want of me, the both of you? Do you want me to seem crushed, to hate myself, to ask for some unnamed public punishment that can never be adequate, only symbolic? If I or Mr. Stark were to cry in front of the cameras while you question us, that would not do any victims, anywhere, an ounce of good. If I prostrate myself and beg forgiveness from the media at large and the American public, that will cause strangers unhurt by me to claim that I deserve to be forgiven for something that they had no part in, and in most cases are themselves doing nothing to resolve. There are few things more insulting and useless that I could do, for those who have suffered because of this company, as well as myself and Tony Stark.”

Pepper stepped around her desk, approaching them slowly, her hands folded behind her long, straight back, as she continued, “This is not your fight. This is a story you’re chasing, because you sell stories to those people eager to forgive myself and Tony Stark for wrongs they want to pretend that they care about, when it’s not their hands that are bloodied, or _their_ consciences weighed down with guilt. Trust me, Mr. Wallace, Miss Archer, when I say that I’m perfectly fine with the work this company is now doing, and the transparency under which it now operates.”

“Even Tony Stark’s pet projects? The Iron Man armor? The Avengers?” Miss Archer prompted, but her voice was soft.

“Those are Tony’s personal projects, and personal responsibilities. He uses his private income, his own resources. We don’t pay him to be the Iron Man; we pay him to be Tony Stark,” Pepper responded, crisp and cool. “Now please: get out of my office.”

Lyra raised an eyebrow, watching the statistics on her StarkPad: Pepper’s temperature slowly lowering again, albeit very slowly compared to how fast it had risen in the first place. It got a bit quicker once Happy escorted the journalists out, only to halt at a still-unhealthy plateau. Lyra set the device aside and rose to her feet, approaching Pepper’s desk as the red-haired woman slowly sat back down in her chair, with her eyes closed.

“Excess heat,” Lyra said softly. It wasn’t a question.

“It always is,” Pepper sighed. “Heat and––god, I’m as restless as Tony with nothing to do, have been all day and that conversation has not helped.” She rubbed at her temples, then startled a little at the feel of cold hands at the base of her neck, rubbing in salve that felt even colder. She exhaled slowly. “How do you get it that cold?”

“Magic,” the trickster murmured, lightly teasing.

“I knew it,” Pepper responded: deadpan and dry.

Lyra smiled a little. This was all excellent practice, really: a chance to slowly practice smaller, more detailed applications of the Jotunn abilities that had been hidden from awareness for so long. “Oh yes. I’m absolutely the most magical being you’ve ever met.”

Pepper snorted. “You say that, but I met a sorcerer over lunch with Tony the day before your interview.”

“A sorcerer? Oh, I am impressed.” All sarcasm.

As the cold increased, Pepper shivered a little. “That feels fantastic.”

“My magic is far better than his, I promise.”

“Well, yours is science, so I personally agree with that, probably.”

Lyra contemplated the irony for a moment and smirked. “He is more showmanship and hand-waving? People get so worked up about that sort of thing being unscientific.”

“Blame the Vatican,” Pepper offered.

“Ooh, fair enough.”

“His name was Stephen Strange, and I swear, if Tony had an estranged older brother who had done a lot of LSD and med-school instead of attending MIT and a lot of raucous parties full of drunk engineering students, the result would be startlingly similar to Stephen Strange.”

Lyra grimaced a bit at the thought. “And you had lunch with the both of them?”

“So much posturing. I think at one point I hit them both with a menu.”

A giggle escaped the trickster before she could stop it, and Pepper joined in and exacerbated it before it could be stifled. They both laughed for almost half a minute. Then Pepper sighed and leaned back in her chair, deeply relaxed by the feeling of cold. It would’ve bothered her, before Extremis, but just now it soothed her to her bones more than any hot bath now could. “Why haven’t you given me some of that salve? It would be practical. I could apply it myself.”

Lyra momentarily cursed the observant ones. “It’s the means of application, in combination with the salve, that has this effect. It is––something I do.”

Pepper’s eyes fell open. Her head lolled back slightly over the back of her chair so she could meet the other woman’s stare. “A not-human trick?”

“Yes.”

“Will I ever get to find out what you are instead of human, you think?” She offered a small, sincerely curious little smile: earnest and kind, but with a bit of bitter practicality and dry humor.

Lyra swallowed tightly, for a number of reasons, all of them a little disquieting. The other realms were frequently warned about mortals of Midgard, and how something about them––well, perhaps it had to do with their fragility or the brevity of their lives, or more likely their boldness and reckless arrogance in the face of this or, likelier still, the combination of the two. They had a way about them, like accidental wiles, that made them terrifyingly easy to... _care_ about. Belatedly, Loki realized that an elegant and dangerous trap had been here laid out, however accidental, but it was already too interesting to stop now. “I don’t know.”

Pepper’s brow furrowed a little. She wore concern and worry like old friends, like they were tailor-made for her. “Are you all right? I didn’t mean to––overstep any boundaries or anything, or ask too much, I just-”

“And that, more than anything, puzzles me, I think,” Lyra murmured. “If ever you do puzzle me out, I will be doomed, I think.”

“Doomed?” Now she sounded sincerely bemused. “Wha––why doomed?”

“Because I’m supposed to be temporary.”

“As an employee,” Pepper said, and shrugged, pressed back against the other woman’s hands again, her eyelids fluttering a bit at the pleasant rush of further cold. “But I’m not exactly just an employee. Nor are a lot of our friends.”

“And you would like me as such a friend why?”

“Because you make me laugh, you make Tony flustered, you’re disconcertingly brilliant, and I want to figure you out,” Pepper said simply. “Similar to the reasons you’re here, but without the pay or medical emergency standby things, right?”

Lyra stilled smiling a small, self-deprecating and reluctant smile. “I don’t understand you, Pepper Potts.”

“Most people don’t. I think you might, if you stuck around a little.”

“I’ve got––a number of things I need to do. They shouldn’t arrive for a while, so I have time for this contract, but afterwards...”

“You have plans?”

“Many.”

“War-like?”

“Now you’re reaching.”

“Ah, yes, but I’m not wrong.” Pepper wagged a finger as though scolding.

“You are not.”

“War with whom?”

Lyra considered. “Some people who did me great harm.”

“How vague.”

“Plausible deniability.”

“Ooh, fair enough.” Suddenly it was Pepper’s turn to look self-deprecating, and there was pain about the edges of it. “I certainly know all about the value of that, don’t I?” She narrowed her eyes a little at Lyra. “Tell me I won’t want to kill you when it’s done? And if you plan to lie, make it convincing and keep in mind I spent years working for Tony Stark, and now I live with him.”

“I’m a talented liar, myself.”

“I can tell. Me too, believe it or not.”

Lyra tilted her head slightly. “I believe it.”

Another, more weary smile from Pepper. “Good.”

“You haven’t been sleeping. Why?”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

Lyra’s hands moved to the muscles where Pepper’s shoulder and neck met, squeezing and releasing gently: light massage. _Humans. So terribly distracting when intelligent._ It was, clearly, a terrible idea to stay here; and yet, how much further could this go? How much more could a trickster get away with, how far under the masks could  Pepper’s earnestness go before one of them was too afraid to proceed. It was the promise of that future, inevitable fear, that kept Lyra’s feet where they were. Human fear should, in theory, be predictable. If only in theory. “It isn’t a war that should affect you and yours––much.”

“I do not like that qualifier,” Pepper muttered.

“You will not be hurt by it, and I haven’t yet decided how useful Tony might be for any parts of it––if at all.” _Only a sliver of a lie, there, at the very end_.

“Can I change your mind, do you think?”

Lyra blinked a bit at that. “Not really. I’m also waiting for other factors to still unfold, before I can say with certainty what the final shape of this conflict will be like.”

“Will you survive it?”

“There wouldn’t be much point otherwise,” Lyra mused.

“Now that, I sometimes think I’d not mind hearing from Tony more often.” Then she frowned. “Then I remember who he is, and the things he does and I feel awful.”

“Love makes people selfish. It’s expected.”

“I thought it made them less selfish?”

“Only to a very limited, practical extent.”

Pepper hummed, amused. “I can see that.”

She could, Lyra noted. It was another glimpse and elusive spark of–– _something_ about Pepper Potts that had no right to be as captivating as it was, in Loki’s opinion. And yet, it still was. Lyra pulled her hands back, smiling a little despite herself at the slightly petulant huff Pepper gave in response to the retreat.

“Well, just know that whatever inhumanity you have, I kinda like it,” Pepper sighed. “And I’m not scared of you yet.”

Humans, Loki reflected, were dangerous.

 

~~

 

After another full week, Pep's treatments for cooling-down purposes had steadily increased. She had mentioned them to Tony, who had begun pressing Lyra for answers about how it worked, how reliable was it really, and how concerned should they be that she needed it increasingly often. He was, and she told him multiple times, being very annoying. He didn’t care, she knew, but informed him nevertheless.

"She hasn't been exercising Extremis at all," Lyra said simply. "Like she's trying to ignore it rather than embrace it."

"Can you blame her?"

"If she tries to ignore it, she won't be able to control it. The less control she has over it, the more likely she will be to have to resort to another dosage soon."

Tony ran a hand over his face. "What can we do?"

"Did she decide to be rid of it? Entirely?"

The inventor folded his arms across his chest, one thumb absently tapping the arc reactor. "She's not sure. I've been looking into both, and I hate to admit it-"

"By which you mean 'me being 100% correct’, you mean?"

Tony ignored her and continued, "-but it would be easier to stabilize it than to reverse it all the way, but--"

"Then maybe try that as your primary plan _instead_ of working with a second dose," Lyra interrupted softly. "So she can be less afraid of it, less afraid of coming apart, and you can have more time to work on the reversal option."

"If it doesn't work out? Doesn't stabilize?"

"That's what I'm for."

"I'd be more comforted if I knew how, Doc," Tony said, shooting her a shrewd glare. "Or at least got some hints about why you won't share. Come on, now; you're elbow-deep in the most important parts of my life these days, and you know it. I'm trying to trust you, but I still have no damn clue who you are or what you really want from us."

Humans, the trickster reflected, were terribly insistent upon this trust business. It should have been easy to keep weaving more lies, letting them believe they were let in, but being insincere with Tony Stark meant being consistent about it, and that included lying in the same ways to Miss Potts as well and that was...

Well. There was something to be said about being comfortable behind masks of a certain sort, and how they provided unique opportunities for honesty when it was clear just how much truth could be revealed without danger of one's identity being discovered. Pep had never met a certain trickster god, had never seen more than a few images of him in passing, among dozens of others from S.H.I.E.L.D. files about the Avengers and the invasion of New York City. It was theater, and Loki seldom found such a charming audience to reveal himself to as this pair: on one hand taunting the inventor and picking him apart while getting deciphered a bit thrillingly in return, and on the other letting Pepper see more of Loki than anyone new had managed in many years.

Too many lies would make the audience more distant, and limit what truths could be revealed without compromising Pep's willingness to allow a certain degree of confidentiality. Tony kept no such courteous curtains between what Lyra told him, and what he told his lover in turn, to keep them on the same page as he watched for contradictions. Too many contradictions, and Pep would really want to know just why she could be told, and Tony could not.

That would ruin the game altogether.

"Your lack of response is starting to freak me out," the inventor added, snapping Lyra from her thoughts.

"I doubt you would trust me just at my word."

After examining her expression for a few moments, Tony tilted his head a bit to one side. "She's started to win you over, hasn't she?"

"Pardon?"

"You like her. You already don't like the idea of her getting hurt, I can tell."

"Why do you sound so amused by this?"

"Because you're insane and have nothing to lose, right? No living family, a career that's marked by international incidents, the AIM scandal, and one high note involving the controversial figure of one Captain American Values™. You're probably something of a spy, for all I know you might even be more ruthless than I am and just a bit too brilliant and incapable of playing well with others for too long to have any lasting friendships. And you're here, seeing how _useful_ I might be for who the fuck knows what, and I think you're compromised."

"By sympathy?"

"By someone you're realizing is safe to show some of your worst self to, knowing she won't flinch. She's accepted me being blood-soaked, and she doesn't talk about it even with me, but until recent she usually slept well at night despite some blood on her own hands too. She's not afraid of you, or if she is, it doesn't make her actually want to hurt you, so I know why she's so appealing as--as someone who can maybe make you feel almost safe again for the first time in I won't even pretend to know how long.” He shrugged with a self-deprecating half-smile. “I don't know you. I just know what I've seen in the mirror every day since Afghanistan, and you look like you've seen some crazy shit of your own, sometimes, based on how much you remind me of my damn reflection when you think no one will notice, or be able to read you."

Lyra took a slow, deep breath, glaring at him. "Stop that."

Tony grinned fiercely. "I'm right."

She said nothing.

"Look, if you let her, she can be a good friend, is all I'm saying," Tony said, a little more gently. "And I don't trust you, still, yeah, mostly, but I think at this point it’s just because you remind me of all of the parts of myself I'm most afraid of losing control of."

"Where are you going with this, exactly?"

"I don't care if you don't like me. I don't care if you don't trust me, don't want to let me in on your secrets, or whatever the fuck. I get it." He gestured, sweeping away all of the fucks he didn't give with his fingertips. "But if you can't like Pepper, and can't be her friend, you are clearly inhuman to such a degree that we can never, ever be friends."

Lyra gave an amused snort and smothered a laugh despite herself.

Tony smirked faintly. "I'm serious, though."

"Oh, I know you are," she responded, and looked up from the work she'd been using to avoid eye contact as she arranged her lies and truths appropriately. "I have no plans to exploit her to use you. Whatever I might decide in future, I can promise you that she will be left out of the line of fire, where I am concerned."

"And any future allies you might collect?"

"Allies usually like me for my ability to give them plans, or improve the ones they already have. If they stray too far, they will find me suddenly no longer on their side, and capable of collapsing their entire house of cards, should I choose," Lyra murmured. "I don't ally myself with anyone I can't steer to my personal satisfaction for any major plans, unless desperate." She shrugged. "Things are not so desperate these days, and I will have the courtesy to offer you some warning if they seem inclined to become so. In any case, you're more useful alive than not, and you wouldn't last long without her."

"True, yeah." Tony blinked a bit. "You're not with Hydra, are you?"

"I found out they had something of mine." She shot him a sharp look, letting him get the briefest glimpse of something cold in her expression, something ancient that always lurked behind the mischief and madness: patient as a glacier, and equally capable of carving scars across worlds. He would believe it to be inspired by Hydra; in truth, it resulted from thoughts of Thanos and the Chitauri: plans within plans. "I will deal with them eventually."

The inventor swallowed tightly, looking a little conflicted. "Remind me not to piss you off that badly."

Lyra offered him her prettiest, most harmless and beatific smile, then.

Tony's expression remained tricky to read: caught between being impressed, reluctantly turned on, and a bit perturbed. "You're looking for revenge then."

"Actively planning," the trickster conceded.

"On Hydra?"

"They're involved."

"But not the primary target?"

"Plausible deniability is your friend, Tony." She offered a smile.

"Well. I could help, though."

"I never said I trusted you."

"You could."

"You don't even know what I'm getting revenge for."

He considered. "True. I'd probably have to know that before helping in more than an advisory, non-adversarial capacity."

"Adversarial?"

"Well, you seemed to think I helped S.H.I.E.L.D. out that way." He shrugged. "On that note: I'm curious about how it is that I can't find anything useful from hacking you. Nothing about... well, anything but your work I already knew about."

Lyra fluttered her eyelashes at him. "And you wonder why I don't trust you?"

"This is just how I treat all interesting people. You can ask Pep."

Shaking her head at him, she returned her attention to the screens in front of her, intent on ignoring him for a while.

The quiet didn't last long.

"So how long will you be sticking around, really? If this takes a while."

For a long moment, the trickster's fingers stilled and her expression turned calculating again. "I'm waiting for a number of plans to come to fruition. This is a fine diversion to keep me occupied. I may be weeks, or it may be two months."

"That's got to be annoying."

"It's strategic as poker. I have to take into account how long others take for their elaborate bluffs and the stratagems behind them."

"Then you con them all?"

"No." She smiled. "I let them think they've won, for a while."

"You sure you aren't a supervillain?"

"Aren't you supposed to be the expert?"

He frowned slightly, but conceded: "Touche`."

Lyra's phone went off in her coat pocket. She reached for it without looking, and glanced at the text. "Duty calls. I've made some changes that might interest you to your latest model." She turned the screen his way as she stood.

"Yeah, yeah. You always do."

"You've kept most of them."

Tony frowned. "I know. It's just creative angst. I'm an artist, I'll have you know."

"You're an engineer." She didn't even glance back as she headed for the door.

"What about you, then?"

"I'm a mage," she shot back, voice light and mocking.

Tony scoffed, then narrowed his eyes. "JARVIS, hold the door."

"Tony," Lyra warned.

"Mage?"

"You can't take a joke?" She shot him an annoyed, incredulous look.

"No, I've just met mages before. I like a bit of reassurance."

She rolled her eyes. "Let me out."

After a few moments, with visible reluctance, he did. "Keep magic out of my lab, please."

"No promises. Arthur C. Clarke and all, what we do IS magic." She stuck out her tongue playfully, and slipped out the door.

Staring after her for a long moment, Tony felt something in his brain itch. "JARVIS? Still no luck voice mapping her honest versus dishonest responses?"

"None, sir, using voice-recognition alone."

"What about other scans?"

"She is still oddly difficult to get a read on."

Tony frowned. "How?"

"Readings for temperature, heart-rate, and other non-visual, non-auditory data are glitch-prone, as though sensors are damaged or otherwise unable to collect information, no matter how randomized attempts to collect such data are."

"Call Dr. Strange, please, JARVIS."

"Right away, sir."

 

~~

 

"I do have a busy schedule of my own, you know," the sorcerer insisted, not long after appearing in Tony's office--rather mundanely, as he'd apparently been in the neighborhood, so Happy just picked him up. "There are great things in motion just beyond my reach, and I cannot work out who on earth is behind all of them."

"Sure they're from earth?"

"Not everything is aliens, you know."

"Gods and mages are on the list, though."

Strange sighed. "The one or two elder gods involved, far more active over the past months than they've been for almost half a century before that, are actually quite terrestrial."

"But you don't know who is stirring them up? Aren't you supposed to be earth's sort of premier mystical know-it-all?"

"I don't know why I bother with you, Stark."

"Because I have even more money than you, and can hack S.H.I.E.L.D. in ways your magic just can't match, and you like keeping them on their toes as much as I do."

"And yet, is even that worth the headaches I get from conversing with you?"

"Magic it away."

Strange glared at him levelly.

"I'm just saying, if you're the Supreme Gordita of Sorcery on our planet, and if things are going on of great pitch and movement and all, but you can't work out a human or more terrestrial figure at the heart of it all, then maybe there are greater things in heaven and earth, Stevie, than are dreamt of in your current philosophy."

"I loathe you."

"Come on! I'm so charming!"

"You mentioned concerns about an employee of yours?"

"Yeah. I think she might have something magic going on that's throwing off JARVIS's sensors."

"What exactly have you had him trying to sense?" Strange mocked.

"Lie-detection, you ass. I'm not that sort of creep."

"Lie-detection?" The sorcerer raised an eyebrow.

"She's... well, I don't know what the hell she is, aside from inexplicably too familiar for comfort, dangerously intelligent, and honestly capable of scaring me a little in ways that makes me long for the days I knew there was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best trained assassins posing as an executive assistant and keeping tabs on me."

"Well, admittedly, that does sound impressive."

Tony frowned as a sudden thought occurred to him that could be either a brilliant deduction from years of struggle against not only Murphy's Law, but the dread O'Toole's law*, or if he'd been watching too many movies. "You said there's a lot stirring but only mentioned a couple of elder gods. What else is going on, out of curiosity?"

"On the Astral plane, there is, reluctant as I am to admit to you, concern about certain forces from beyond the earth. Someone has been trying to surreptitiously collect Infinity Gems, which is always disconcerting, given the reasons for their being scattered in the first place. Nightmare is on something of a rampage lately, but there's something unusual about it, as though he's hunting someone other than myself or the usual among his targets. He is almost... patrolling, like he expects some sort of invasion. Then there is still more beyond that," Strange explained. "I only wish I knew what's going on underground in Siberia, but I've gotten more distressing letters from anguished psychics in the region about nightmares of world-consuming fire than is ever a good sign."

"Siberia?"

"Yes, that's actually part of why I required your aid in seeking some information from S.H.I.E.L.D., really."

The inventor frowned a little as he began to suspect that reality itself had been watching too many movies. "So, what, are we looking at the ends of days or something?"

"Usually, you can find any number of mystics inclined to assure you that we are. I'm here to make sure they are incorrect."

"Uh-huh. It's Hydra, in Siberia."

"Pardon?"

"Hydra. They're working off some info they bribed ex-KGB mercenaries to nick from the employee I want you to meet. That's what S.H.I.E.L.D. is looking into around there, recently, anyhow."

"Hydra," Strange repeated, looking skeptical. "Nazis."

"Radical offshoot too extreme for the Nazis," Tony corrected, smirking as he said it. "Sorry, I'm having one of those, 'my life is ridiculous' moments again."

"Walk it off, and introduce me to this employee of yours. I'll attempt to detect any cloaking or stealth-related spells, glamours, or the like, and you can introduce me to your preferred sushi chef."

Tony frowned. "How did you know I was going out for sushi?"

"I looked ahead a little."

"I hate it when you do that."

"I know. Where is this mystery woman?"

"Pepper's office, most likely."

Strange's eyebrows raised.

"What?"

"What is her job, exactly?"

"Keeping Pepper from spontaneously combusting and providing me consult on reverse-engineering of Extremis."

The sorcerer looked thoughtful. "And you think she possesses magic?"

"It's a hunch. She's... well, I've met her before, but I don't know when and I think she knows but won't tell me anything other than that I offered her a drink and she declined, and some flimsy story about not remembering much more than that."

"Interesting. Deja vu is common when someone is concealing their appearance in some way, but not their personality."

"Well. She's a bit unfairly gorgeous, but that's not surprising when it comes to the sort of people I offer drinks to."

"You offer drinks to anyone with or without legs."

"But especially if they're female and gorgeous."

"Do you plan to come with me or not."

"Yeah, yeah." Tony emerged from behind his desk. "Come on, this way."

He led Strange down the hall to the elevator before ascending to Pepper's office, which she had never actually given back to him after the Vanko incidents. Same with her title of CEO, though. Tony stood outside the door for a few seconds until JARVIS' voice, from the region of his jacket's breast pocket, said, "She has just ended her conference call, sir."

"Thank you, JARVIS."

"How did you time that?" Strange mused.

"Best not to ask," Tony assured, and pushed the doors open with a grin. "Ladies! Let's do lunch. Lyra, you can even meet the sushi chef."

Lyra's head snapped up, here eyes wide with hunger and another sort of emotion that, on anyone else might have been innocent wonder. "The one from-"

"Yes." The inventor's grin was wide and charming.

"Hello, Stephen," Pepper greeted. "Allow me to introduce Dr. Lyra Walker."

"Skywalker," Tony muttered.

"Pardon?" Strange asked, sounding a bit hesitant.

"My middle name amuses him," Lyra offered, rising to her feet and approaching them. She proffered a hand to strange. "Pepper has mentioned you, Dr. Strange. You're S.H.I.E.L.D.'s occult consultant, correct?"

"As Tony is their general superhero consultant and Avengers liaison, so am I for the more supernatural sorts, yes." His expression was a very careful mask, his smile polite but not quite reaching his eyes. This woman made him instinctively wary, but she wore no guises, no glamours. There was definitely a strange energy about her, but something seemed to be muting it: something itself too quiet, too elegantly woven into the more mundane air around her, to identify. Her elegant hands and long fingers were cold at first, but warmed quickly when they shook hands. "Call me Stephen." When she let go, it was like he lost sight of all of those impressions, and instead she was merely a professional, calm, incidentally pretty woman, who was as human-seeming as could be. Stephen shivered.

"If you will call me Lyra in turn."

"Thank you."

She looked deeply amused, stepped back to stand beside Pepper's desk.

"Do I even want to know what you're up to, Tony?" Pepper sighed.

"Actually, lunch was Strangelove's idea. I called him in to give him an update on a few concerns he's got in Siberia, since S.H.I.E.L.D. has been lurking around there, but not telling him much about it," Tony lied easily.

Strange nodded solemnly in response, playing along.

"Siberia?" Lyra's expression sharpened a little. "I don't suppose they're recovered anything of interest?"

"Not yet, no," Tony said. "Natasha's been sent back their way, though. She's their best, for this sort of thing."

Pepper smiled a little, though worry furrowed her brow as well, just as Lyra also gave a thoughtful, curt nod to dismiss the topic.

"Sushi, you mentioned," Lyra reminded the inventor, who grinned.

"You really were impressed, weren't you?"

"I remain impressed. And inclined to offer her a marriage proposal," the trickster shot back. She would not be the first mortal Loki had proposed to, but the first mortal artist and master craftsman, so that was something. It might be awkward if the suit were actually accepted, but doubts were sufficient for Lyra to be blasé about the whole matter.

"Happy has the car ready outside," Tony offered. He strode over and offered his hand to Pepper. "Shall we, dear?"

She shook her head at him, but placed her hand in his as she stood, and twined her fingers with his as they approached the door, their guest left to follow in their wake.

"I can't believe he actually brought you in to asses me," Lyra mused softly, just low enough for the couple ahead to them to not overhear, as they entered the hall.

Strange's shoulders stiffened slightly. "You thought he would?"

"Pepper mentioned you. I made an offhand joke the other day about having magic."

"Well, you do."

"I don't know what you mean," Lyra teased, offering a fierce little grin that showed a few too many teeth to be called light-hearted.

"The last time I met someone with an aura quite so unnervingly unobtrusive, yet intimidating, as the one you project, I found myself dealing with a rogue Vanir." He shot her a glance, noticing that she feigned surprise quite convincingly, except for the slightly unnatural glitter of mischief in her deep green eyes. "You're not trying very hard to fool me."

"Do I need to?"

"What are you?"

"Another rogue. I have no kin, here, nothing but myself, and humans in general are not always kind to such people."

"Those two are." Strange nodded toward the inventor and his love.

"I know."

"Why not tell them what you are?"

"Pepper knows I am not human. She knows also I am capable of things she does not entirely understand."

Strange's eyebrows raised a little. "She has not shared this knowledge, I don't think."

"I respectfully asked her not to. She accepted."

“They’re whispering to each other,” Pepper pointed out to the inventor, then. “I can’t hear them at all. Tony, did you-”

“Lyra, cease plotting outrageous calumny,” the inventor barked suddenly.

"It’s nothing you need worry over, Tony."

"Also, please don't abuse fellow guests, Lyra," Pepper added.

"But he's so abusable. Look at him; look at that frown of disapproval framed by the questionable mustache," the trickster mused.

"Well, she may have a point," Tony muttered.

Strange's attention fixed on the inventor again, long enough to shoot him a sardonic, annoyed look. "Seriously?"

"You’d tell me if I’d missed a decent joke, though, right?" Tony asked.

"I don’t recall making a joke," the sorcerer said. He shot Lyra a look. "Do you?"

"Maybe, but I prefer to see him scowl like he feels left out."

Tony barely managed not to scowl like he felt left out. "Lame. Both of you." He then looked away again, opening exit door for them to pass through, smiling a bit when Pepper plucked the car keys from his pocket on her way past, unlocking it as they approached.

"You enjoy annoying him, don't you?” Strange asked the trickster.

"I enjoy discomfiting people with vast egos," she said simply. Then she slipped into the back seat. So did Strange.

After a few minutes of driving, Strange put up a simple barrier spell between the back seats and the front: enough for their conversation to be unheard, though they could still hear Tony and Pepper, so as to not seem conspicuously unaware of their banter if they decided to try and include the back seat in it as they often did. He raised an eyebrow when something else entwined with it shortly thereafter: magic not his own, weaving a gentle suggestion aimed Pepper and Tony to pay the back seat no mind at all, and find that not at all strange.

"You are familiar to Stark," Strange said, cutting right to the chase.

"He is familiar with many people." She shrugged.

"Have you affected his mind to hide yourself from him?"

"I tried once. It didn't work out. That was before I had even met Maya Hansen, though, and long before all this." She gestured around them.

"Was that also when he offered you a drink?

She smirked. "Yes."

"What were you trying to do?"

"That is no business of yours."

"Why are you helping them?"

"Boredom."

"Boredom?" He sounded unimpressed.

"They are the least boring mortals I've found so far," Lyra said, and it wasn't even a lie. “And this is a good hiding place. Thus, I am here.”

Strange considered. "That doesn't mean they can trust you."

"I don't need them to."

"You don't?"

"No." She then straightened up in her seat slightly, as though straining to hear something in the distance. Her expression turned cold and certain. "Take the ward down. Something isn't right." She retracted her own.

The sorcerer followed suit. "What is it?"

"Shield them, and yourself. Now," Lyra muttered, eyes narrowing, though she stared through everything in front of her rather than at it.

"What-"

"NOW, OR ARE YOU NOT A MAGE?" Lyra snarled, eyes fiercely bright.

Tony had just enough time to jerk in surprise and utter, "What the fuck is-" before something smashed into the car.

There was a riot of twisting metal, light and dark, blurred color and shattered glass after. Then it stopped and the inventor gasped, barely managing to stay upright when he realized he was standing on the sidewalk beside Pepper and Strange, staring at the wreckage of the car and the thing that had smashed into it, across the street. "What the fuck is that?"

"A nightmare construct," Strange said gravely. "It should not be capable of such a solid manifestation on this plane."

Pepper spun around. "Where's Lyra?"

"I-" Strange said, but was interrupted an elbow in his side.

Lyra took a half-step forward, so she was visible to Pepper. "Here."

Strange raised an eyebrow at her. He hadn't been able to get a lock on her for immediate transport, after all.

She raised an eyebrow right back, daring him to question.

He instead fixed his attention back on the nightmare thing. “There’s a device around it’s neck; I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Shock collar?” Tony suggested, as the beast pulled itself upright once more, turning to face them all. The mass of scaly flesh with occasional tufts of unkempt dark fur was a bit taller than the hulk, but didn’t look altogether corporeal, despite the fact it could certainly hit solid objects as though it were. With massive and powerful hind-limbs, and slightly narrower, less bulky forelegs with hand-like paws, it also looked like the offspring of a dragon and a giant sloth, with teeth stolen from a few monkfish, the latter showed off spectacularly as its long muzzle fell open and it unleashed a hellish shriek that had pedestrians leaping out of their cars and fleeing down the street, traffic be damned.

“I think the collar is keeping the creature in our plane,” Strange said after muttering a few basic spells. “It is unfamiliar machinery, and I cannot affect it from here. No response.”

“So destroy the collar and it goes away,” Pepper said softly, thoughtfully.

Lyra was not at all surprised when alerts on her phone went off indicating that Miss Potts’ vital signs were suddenly approaching volcanic. “Pepper, I have an important question for you.”

“Pep, this is a bad idea,” Tony said, as the beast began lumbering toward them.

“My turn to not listen, then,” she countered, and handed him her purse before she shrugged out of her blazer and the dress shirt under it, not caring about a few popped-off buttons in the least. Underneath she wore a pale tank-top over her bra. “Hold this.”

The inventor did so. “I’m trusting you here.”

“What was your question, Lyra?”

“Can you regulate?”

Pepper shot the other woman a look and smiled a bit. “I’m scared, I’m ticked off that my lunch is being interrupted, and you three are in trouble. Yeah, I’m in the perfect mood for this.” She nodded at them all, kissed Tony on the cheek, and stepped away, hands curled into fists.

Tony bit his lower lip, looking perturbed and conflicted. “This is a bad idea.”

“She is the one of us least able to be harmed, presently.” Strange shot Lyra a look. “By all appearances.”

Tony nearly gave himself whiplash doing a double-take at that. “Any secret powers you want to share, Lyra?”

“Not today, no. I-” Then she cut off, because she was watching with slightly wide eyes as something in Pepper’s direction happened, involving a lot of fire. She opened her mouth to say something, but shut it again as the nightmare-creature shrieked.

Pepper, having let the thing sniff her and open its mouth wide for just a moment before she’d breathed fire down its throat, now leapt up after it as it tried to rear back and turn to flee. She managed to land on it’s shoulders as it tried to smother the flames on its own face, and seized the collar on it, which she focused all of her attention on until it heated in her hands and began to crumple, then simply melt.

Not long after that, the creature vanished and Pepper landed on the ground, the collar still in one hot hand.

She approached them all again, and dropped the collar at Tony and Strange’s feet. “That... okay, so I admit that might have been kind of fun.”

Tony made an incoherent noise in his throat.

Pepper grinned a slow, wide grin that the other two hadn’t seen before, though Tony had, usually in lower lighting. “You’re turned on, aren’t you?”

“I respect no one who could witness that and not be, Pepper Potts,” Lyra said quietly. She then cleared her throat.

“Mine,” Tony said flatly.

“I will do my best to console myself with sushi, perhaps,” she responded, and knelt down to examine the collar Pepper had retrieved. “This craftsmanship...” Her expression turned shrewd, and she tapped her lips with the pad of her thumb.

“Familiar at all?” Strange prompted.

After a moment’s consideration, Lyra shook her head and lied quietly, “No.” Then she glanced up at Pepper, relieved to see her glow faded and Tony helping her back into her shirt.

“No buttons are missing, now,” Strange murmured, very quietly, so that only the other mage would hear. “You did that?”

“It’s a very minor spell. Family used it,” Lyra explained, as she stood back up. She met his gaze steadily again. “I’m here for my own reasons. You have my word that while I have myriad plans of my own, I’m no more danger to Pepper Potts than any of her other friends.”

“Siberia?”

“They stole my work.”

“What work?”

Lyra shook her head. “Nothing of interest to you.”

“I think that is a blatant lie.”

“Mr. Stark, I think it fair to say our lunch plans have been derailed,” Lyra said a bit more loudly, ignoring the sorcerer.

“Have they?”

“I look awful,” Pepper muttered.

“You look fucking edible,” Tony muttered back, not quite quiet enough for the others to remain blissfully ignorant.

Pepper whispered in his ear, “Then maybe I should shower instead of going out for lunch, and take you with me.”

“So. Lunch plans cancelled yes, sorry,” Tony said, very quickly. “For us, anyway. Happy should be by in a few minutes to pick us all up. Strange? I’d like a word or several with you before you leave, though.”

“You’ll need to have them now, then. I refuse to wait.”

Tony sighed. “Figures.” He reluctantly unwrapped his arms from around Pepper’s waist let Strange lead him a little ways down the street.

Lyra sidled up to Pepper, who said, “Why does Tony think you have magic suddenly? I didn’t tell him, so I’m curious.”

“I made an unwise joke about being a mage.”

“Are you one?”

After thinking about her answer uncomfortably for a few moments, Lyra nodded. “Yes. I am, actually.”

“So Lyra Walker is a complete farce, then? Your mother wasn’t a hippie with a thing for viking mythology, and your career to date has been... what?”

“Part of a much larger plan.”

“You’re not from earth?”

Lyra smiled a bit. “Perhaps.”

“Why not a definite answer?”

“I won’t say.”

Pepper frowned at her. “You worry me.”

“I’m sorry,” Lyra said, a little more softly than she had intended.

“It’s––I want to know who you really are, then. My life kind of depending on you, a bit, if this...” She let one hand visibly heat up, then cool again. “Well. I hope I don’t have to depend on you to save me, but if it does come down to that, I do really want to be able to trust you, y’know?”

“You interest me,” Lyra said. “I’ve already told you more than I should. If you share even half of this information with either of them, they’ll have enough to guess what I am, and possibly who. Tony particularly.”

“Because you’ve met him before?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Not long enough ago for me to be comfortable with, but recent enough you should know his loyalty to you was never a question.”

“But he mentioned that you said he offered you a drink?”

“He offers drinks to people he wishes to put at ease, or distract, or dazzle with wit or theatrics that he’s improvising. It had nothing to do with any baser intentions.”

“You’re talking a bit differently.”  
Lyra winced. “My apologies. That machinery was actually... a little familiar. I may have to go somewhere, briefly. I won’t be so far that you would be in any way out of my reach, should I be needed.”

“Was it after you?”

“Possibly.”

“From whom?”

“Tony will know precisely from whom as soon as he gets a good look at the remains of that collar, so promise to let him think it’s his idea?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”  
Lyra grinned, a little sharper and more mischievous than she generally allowed herself. “I’m sure.” She leaned in to whisper, “Doctor Victor von Doom.”

Pepper gripped the other woman’s upper arm tight, at that, her grip unnaturally strong. “You’re not going to him, are you?”

With a beaming, reassuring smile, all boyish charm, Lyra said, “No, Of course not. Why ever would I do that? Ow!” Smile now turned to a slightly chagrinned frown as she rubbed at the back of her head where Pepper had smacked it. Extremis, the trickster noted, made an otherwise fragile mortal into a being capable of nearly concussing an Aesir on accident. _Impressive._ “Watch your strength, please.”

“Oh! Oh god, I’m so sorry, are you all right?” Pepper gasped, hands moving toward the injured spot.

Lyra caught her wrists gently. “I’m fine, Pepper.” Her smile was crooked and thoroughly self-deprecating.

Pepper took a breath. “Good. Then stop lying, please.”

“You know, that one used to fool all of my closest friends,” Lyra sighed.

“Then they really must not have been very perceptive.”

The trickster managed not to burst out laughing, but just barely. She then deadpanned, “Oh, you have no idea.”

“What were you lying about this time, exactly?” Tony asked cheerfully.

Pepper grinned at him. “She thought I wouldn’t work out where she wants to slink off to before Happy gets here.”

“We need you close enough to handle an emergency,” the inventor warned.

“My diagnosis is that, after that healthy and very well-controlled exertion of Extremis, Pepper will be fine after a nice long shower,” Lyra said, not seeming to notice she was still lightly restraining the other woman’s wrists in front of her as Pepper blushed scarlet. “At least for a few hours. I’ll then be back.” She smiled. “Personal matters to attend to.”

“Meaning she wants to go try and seduce the sushi chef,” Pepper lied, just as lightly and easily, despite her blushing.

Tony, who may or may not have been stuck on the mental image of Lyra and Pepper in a shower, shook his head a bit to clear it. “Right. Right. Seriously, why even bother with that prevarication?”

“Courtesy?” Lyra offered.

“You?” the inventor counter-questioned, sounding incredulous.

“Tony,” Pepper scolded.

Lyra released her wrists easily, then, and began to walk away from them. She was stopped by Strange.

“Would you like a teleportation to the place?” he offered.

The dark-haired woman’s expression flickered with a series of odd emotions: incredulity, confusion, offense, and then finally understanding, which it settled on. “Ah. I think I would prefer a Taxi.”

That was when Happy arrived, and distracted them briefly.

Pepper returned to Lyra briefly, taking hold of both her hands and kissing her cheek. “Be safe. I want you back here as soon as you’re done, okay?” Her brow furrowed again: all immaculate, yet unfeigned, concern. “Please?”

Lyra smiled an odd, almost hesitant sort of smile. It might have been one of the most sincere and open that any face of Loki’s had worn in years––possibly even decades. “I will return soon enough.” She and Strange then watched her go, with her mad inventor.

“So. What did you tell him?” Lyra asked.

“I told him that you are strange, a liar, and that you unnerve me.”

“And?”

“Nothing more. I advised him that I detected nothing active about you indicative of magic, though it was possible you might have some dormant powers. Whether you’re keeping them dormant and mostly-hidden intentionally or otherwise, I don’t know, nor did I mention the possibility of the former to Tony Stark.”

“That is... generous.”

“You may not yet notice it, but you look on them both very differently than you do other people, especially Miss Potts.”

“They are unique.”

“Their lives are unique. As are their intellects, how they complement each other, and so on, but they are also very human. As such, they are not so different from the rest of the people in this city, as you are.”

“And you, Sorcerer Supreme.”

“I’m still a man. Still human. You, I doubt.”

“I could live as one. I could give up all the rest of myself, and be one of them, if I so chose,” Lyra said. “Not in disguise, even. Nor would I need to give up all of my magic, for it is my birthright as it has also been yours. I could live as briefly as them, be as fragile physically and with almost the same limited resistance to all the many things in this world that might kill me.”

“Why don’t you?”

The trickster chuckled softly. “I would make for a lousy human.”

“But you’re good at being whatever you are now?”

“Oh yes,” Lyra murmured. “I am.” _God of mischief, chaos, and lies: I am very, very good at being who and what I am_.

“If you harm them, or turn out to be an enemy of this world under my protection, I will find ways to make you wish desperately that you hadn’t,” Strange said gravely.

“I shall see you later, then. And you will doubtlessly work it out, in the end.” Lyra patted his back almost patronizingly. “Or Tony will tell you the story. One of the two.”

“You plan for him to survive it, then.”

Lyra hesitated, but couldn’t actually argue against it even in her own head anymore, which was... new. “I do.” She offered a quick smile and a wave. “But now, I’m off.” She waved her fingers at him, and vanished into thin air.

Strange sighed tiredly, before doing the same himself shortly after.

 

~~

 

Loki reappeared in a form closer to his usual one, albeit more ginger and friendly-looking, in a comfortably out-of-sight little copse of trees in Central Park, with which he’d become familiar.

A girlish shriek followed, making him wince a little, until he noticed the half-costumed vigilante with a hastly-applied mask, lurking in his preferred copse. “Ah. I should have put better wards about this spot, I see. You are... Spider-man?”

This particular hero of earth seemed quite young. His mask in place, he stepped out of the other leg of his pants and rolled them up to put in his bag, which contained other fairly normal clothing for a middle-class human male between the ages of sixteen and twenty. Under the more normal clothing was something more tight-fitting, garishly colorful, and obviously intended for a superhero to wear––either that or a very eccentric gymnast. “Er... yeah. Who are you, and how did you appear out of nowhere?”

Loki offered his most charming, warm-hearted-looking smile. “I’m just passing through. Have you seen any strange, nightmarish monsters around lately?”

“Three, yeah. There’s one over, uh-”

A loud shriek of horror, this one genuinely from a woman, cut him off.

“There. That’d be my cue.” He stuck his backpack up in the tree’s canopy with a bit of webbing. “You didn’t summon them or anything?”

“Far from it. They’re after me, particularly, you see.”

“Oh. Well. Uh...”

Loki strolled past him in the direction of the sound. “Keep it distracted for a few minutes, will you? I want to lure all of its friends here, to take them out in one fell swoop.” The message getting across the astral plane to Nightmare of his massacred pets, as well as to Doom of his destroyed devices, would bring the attention away from Siberia, away from his many other machinations, to New York. For a while.

He had planned to do this from the beginning, if they got too close, to keep them believing there was something of great importance to him hiding on this side of the Atlantic ocean. Now, he begun to get an even better idea.

Maybe he wouldn’t kill them. Maybe he would deliver them as a gift.

Loki began to grin unkindly as the air stirred around him, whispers of his voice curving gusts of wind around him, words and energy bending air and light into a call like the ghost of a wolf’s howl, just barely audible to any humans and easy for them to ignore, except apparently the Spider-man, who visibly stopped to listen a few times, as he kept the nearest beast tearing through the trees after him, always just out of reach.

“Three more, coming in from the west!” he called.

Loki sent a whisper, separate from the spell still curling up and weaving around him through the air, to the hero’s ear: “Expect just shy of a dozen.”

Spider-man shuddered. “That’s really, really creepy. I could feel that on my ear, seriously, that’s kinda messed up.” Then he started circling wider and wider, letting the creatures fall in like a pack of wolves coming together for an ambush, trying to keep them from going after pedestrians as their eyes began to glow and they grew more frantic, the closer they drew to Loki.

The trickster’s own eyes were glowing darkest green now, drops of blood falling from all of his fingertips, guided by the wind to paint his sigils wherever they fell. The handy thing about creatures of dream, was how easily they could be transported, and how minor the connection could be between two minds, for them to find one based on its having met the other, no matter how many millions of light-years might separate them at the time.

It was ideal, really. And the perfect way to kick-start the more long-distance parts of his plans, sluggish as those were getting.

“ _NOW_ ,” Loki snarled suddenly, louder than most crowd-control, and every temporarily-corporeal nightmare beast in Central Park suddenly stood stock-still for a moment, before launching themselves his way. They had his scent, and knew his voice, and now they could work out his location, with his shields dropped for them.

They vanished, each one, as their paws touched the edge of the seal around him, leaving the collars around their necks to fall around Loki in a circle as they all mindlessly charged at him, and fell into his head.

From there, he seized their wills––dream beasts were so easy to rewrite around the edges––and twisted them. “That scent is death’s lover. Haunt him,” he commanded.

The monsters vanished, then, from his head, and from earth altogether. Loki smirked at the thought of their former masters trying to track them down.

“Who are you?” asked a rough, slightly metallic voice.

Of course. This was Doom as well, collaborating with Nightmare; with Doom, Nothing could be _nice and simple_ as launching about a dozen incorporeal beasts out into the universe to harass a distant Thanos. No, there would have to be a meeting afterward. The trickster found himself often either exasperated, annoyed, or unwillingly awed by the turns of Doctor Doom’s mind, by turns, and depending upon which of his own plans the other, more terrestrial villain was stepping on at any given time.

Loki looked at the cloaked figure in the shadows, his eyes narrowed. _No soul, in there. Doubtlessly one of his decoy automatons_. “I am myself,” he responded, in a light and airy voice, like faint laughter on the wind. It was a voice he did so love taunting the most self-assured and authoritative of mortals with. The doom-bot approached him with a very smooth, precise gait: very human in demeanor. _Possibly a direct connection back to its master: fascinating, and clever, yes, but what are you up to_?

“What are you doing with my world, and what are you?” Doom asked.

“I am a little old god, and I am getting some revenge. Your kingdom will survive it; my sights are not set on it. You, however, may be of use. You have so many resources, and so very many enemies.”

“Without me, my kingdom would have nothing.”

Loki nodded. “True enough.”

“I am Count Doom, and I will not be used by the gods, when they could be so much more useful to me.”

At that, Loki grinned. “You could always offer me a deal. I will then be useful to you, and you might leave the rest of my machinations alone, secure in the knowledge that they are naught to do with you.”

“That would depend upon what those machinations are, little god.”

“That information, I assure you, is out of your price range, unless you can offer me the likes of effortless travel to a planet at the edge of a far-off galaxy where death’s lover has built an incredible shrine, which stands still today to mark the location of a battle that now never happened, but which killed two-thirds of all life in our universe, before it was undone,” Loki shot back.

The Doom-bot gave a very convincing sigh of exasperation. “What game are you playing? Why would you require such transport?”

“Revenge: simple and petty and _very necessary_. Also, a certain amount of habitat-loss prevention, one might say. Your home is under a little less threat than mine, for now, but if I fail, your planet will be next on the list of the creature I’m targeting. You humans and your heroes have gone and gotten him _curious_ about you.”

“About earth?”

“Yes. Not you, though you’ll be noticed once he’s close enough for a better look, I’m certain.” Loki stepped back when the robot tried to step closer. “Keep your distance, thanks; I’ve seen what your automatons can do, Doctor.”

The automaton froze for a moment, then regained its more natural-looking, human-like movements. “You are less easily fooled than most.”

“I an expert in making fools of others. I necessarily know almost all of the very best tricks.” Loki raised a hand, showed his palm to be covered in an intricately drawn seal, made of the blood from the earlier small cuts he’d made into his fingertips. “Do keep that in mind, and think my offer of a deal. Contemplate loftily what concessions you might make, for a number of things that I might offer.” The blood all briefly ignited in an effervescent flash of green sparks.

The Doom-bot struggled against the magic only briefly before the older, wilier spells broke past the techno-mage’s wards and sunk claws in deep. The metal crumpled like aluminum foil, then, so the whole figure seemed to collapse inward on itself. With a wave of his hand, Loki brought the collars of the nightmare-beasts into the spell as well, pressure forcing all of the metal into a single sphere. The cloth the droid had worn, Loki merely combusted. The metal he brought together, heated until it was all molten, and dropped in the middle of a sidewalk in Central Park with enough force to create a crater, which the sluggishly molten metal promptly filled not-quite to overflowing.

Then the sounds of armor and marching feet stilled him, and he looked up.

More Doom-bots. Over a dozen of them.

“Of _course_ it could never be so easy with you. You alone, Doom, you magnificently megalomaniacal mortal,” Loki sighed. From his pocket came an alarmed-sounding beep. The trickster stood very still. “I wouldn’t try to hack that, if I were you.”

“Already done. It is unusually protected.”

“I’m an unusual creature.”

“Why are its safeguards all crafted by Anthony Stark?”

“I stole a phone from the shiniest local hero. Can I be blamed? Incidentally: Spider-Man, you may want to clear out.”

From a nearby tree, the young hero responded, “Uh, not that you aren’t already racking up major badass points here, but I’m not sure you can take all of these guys.”

“Don’t underestimate old gods,” Loki shot back.

“Not until it’s clear that you’re not going to be horribly murdered.”

The trickster rolled his eyes. A few of the bots aimed weapons at the tree. Now they had a sort of hostage, too. _Lovely_. “My what fools these heroes be.”

“Hey!” Spidey protested, a little petulantly.

Loki shut his eyes and the temperature around him plummeted. Ice crystals formed around his feet, then in the air where they dropped to the grass just before the grass itself began to frost over. If he was going to fight automatons with advanced technology as well as protective magics that had doubtlessly just been remotely upgraded to resist an attack too similar to the one he’d just used on the first one, a bit of unexpected elemental power couldn’t go amiss.

He would have preferred to flee, to lead them on a wild chase, but that would risk them getting further past the security of his phone, particularly if anyone like Stark or Pepper Potts got it into their heads to call him.

“Ice will not slow us,” one Doom-bot warned.

“You may think that, but I assure you,” Loki purred, “that you are wrong.” If the ice were applied by magic, instead of the more natural powers deep within his blood and bones, Doom might have been right, but the trickster wasn’t about to give him that much fair warning. His skin changed to blue, his eyes to red, and his immaculate bespoke suit changed to light armor: not the full coat and plates he’d worn to war, but something that left his arms exposed, all the better for the scimitar-like ice-blades to form around them. He grinned widely, wolfishly. “It’s been some time since I’ve faced down an armed force properly. I’ve never done it like this, but I’ve had time to come to terms and learn to take every little advantage I can. Now come on, then.”

Half a dozen of them tool half-steps back and charged up energy-based weapons, the rest beginning to shoot rapid-fire with two different ammunition variations. The latter soon began to close in, just before the first energy-blasts fired.

Loki laughed madly and leapt into their ranks, dodging or deflecting blasts. His ice blades shattered quick, but their large dagger-like shards didn’t lack life; they stabbed into seams and joints wherever they could be found, and grew into them, forcing them open where possible and immobilizing them when they couldn’t. The trickster was knocked back by bullets and energy blasts, but not for long before teleporting back in amongst them, stabbing more, hurling some shards like ice-shuriken, invading the armor with each one that struck any remotely vulnerable spot. He didn’t stop cackling until the first couple of self-destructs went off far too close by for comfort, sending him crashing down, skidding along concrete and leaving streaks of blood on it.

One of them had managed to stab him with a sword of all things, as well.

Loki sat up, pulled the blade from his side with a grimace, and rose to his feet again. “There is a _reason_ that humanity has thought of myself and my kin as gods,” he growled, but he was also still grinning, like his expression had gotten stuck in that mad rictus of cruel joy. He drew closer again and several bots stiffened, falling to the ground as their internal components were pulled apart by the growth of ice crystals all throughout. The five that remained standing took on a frosty opacity on the exterior of their armor. “I need not even resort to much magic, with you. You don’t trust your own magic as well as you should, because it is not as predictable as your machines, yet. You are so young, Doom. You can only advance so far with the magic you were given. It’s so much easier for you to rely on the other resources that came to you by birthright: wealth,  technology, genius, and rank.” They shot at him again and he tiredly raised a force-shield which caught the blasts and bullets alike, and then dissolved them along with itself when it flicker-faded out.

All but one of the bots fell, twisted up by the ice within.

“Now, my dear opponent,” Loki whispered to the last one, as he stepped closer and pulled apart all but its communication systems, so that its master was still able to listen. “You don’t want me to be your enemy, not really. You aren’t, yet, but at this rate you might be soon. Consider the things I have told you for a long time before you come calling again. I hope to meet you civilly, like potential allies, the next time.”

“Unlikely,” the bot said, trying and failing to turn its head toward him, so that Loki obligingly stepped back around in front of it, to look it in the eyes; He’d spared those sensors, too. “But I will consider.”

“That is all I ask,” Loki said. “Goodnight, Doctor Doom. Fare you well.”

The lights behind the bot’s eyes went out, and it crumpled to the ground just like the others. Ice would only hold back their self-repair protocols for so long, but more than long enough for a certain trickster to find ways to be rid of them. He kicked at the helmet of one idly with his boot as he considered.

Then Spider-man dropped from his hiding place. “Uh, just for clarification here, you’re not a hero at all, right?”

“Very astute. I am no hero.”

“But, uh, are you a villain? Because usually Doom here prefers alliances and all with most of them, but he seems really angry at you, which means you might actually be a decent person.”

“Doom is uncertain of me. He is not willing to trust what he cannot decipher, and I am beyond his deciphering, as are my plans so far.”

“Evil plans?”

“I consider them chaotic neutral, and most heroes involved will consider it a vast nuisance, but they will not be exempt from benefitting from my final goal. I’m not doing it for the sake of helping anyone else, however incidentally I may wind up doing so.”

“Huh. Well. That’s... new.”

“My thanks for your aid, Spider-man.” Loki bowed slightly to him

“Can I ask your name?”

“I have a number of them.”

“I’ll settle for a nick-name?”

Loki considered. “Lie-smith. Tell any other soul, and the pictures you took throughout this little battle will mysteriously erase themselves. Whether published or not, they will vanish.”

 _Damn_. “That thing, with the ice, was one of the most fantastic things I’ve ever seen, and I want you to know that. Almost as great as Squirrel Girl, but more scary-awesome than just plain hilarious.”

“Care to see a bit more?” the trickster’s grin was sly.

“Uhm. Will it hurt, maim or kill me?”

“No.”

“Then yeah, I-”

The god of mischief, Spider-man, and all of the doom-bots then vanished.

 

~~

 

“-I’d like that maybe WOW did we just teleport?!” Spider-man finished. There was the sound of a scientist almost overturning his lab table in shock, which the younger hero turned towards. His eyes widened behind the mask, lenses moving a bit along with them. “Oh. Uh. This... isn’t what it looks like? Mr. Fantastic, sir,” he squeaked, raising his hands with palms-forward in a gesture of surrender before looking back to Loki who was... definitely a god.

Atop a lofty pile of icy, twisted, immobilized Doom-made automatons, Loki perched as though lounging on a throne, with the carefree indolence only particularly smug royalty ever seemed capable of managing. He was still blue, and his teeth were startlingly white in the mad smile he offered them both as he idly tossed Spider-man the bag he’d webbed up in a tree. By the weight, he judged that his camera had been returned to it, and he only barely resisted the urge to make sure the film was still intact.

“Uh...” said Peter Parker, behind Spidey’s mask. “I’m not sure what exactly this looks like, but it isn’t? Whatever it sort of is?”

“Who are you and how did you get into my lab?” Reed Richards demanded, stretching over his desk to come stand before them, still a few yards away, but that seemed to matter less, after seeing him stretch. “And where did you get those Doom-bots? What happened to them?”

“I happened to them,” Loki said simply. “He aided a bit.” He nodded toward Spider-man. “Moreso with the nightmare-beasts than with these.”

“Doom sort of attacked him a little,” Spidey explained. “So he looks evil, and he might kinda be, but in this particular instance I’d call it self-defense pretty conclusively.”

“So those monsters we’ve gotten reports on?”

“Gone,” Loki confirmed. “Very far, far away.” His grin was unkind.

“You still haven’t mentioned who you are.”

“Nor will I. I’m leaving the explanations to Spider-man.” He waved cheerfully at them both with a charming, beatific smile. “Adieu.” Then he disappeared.

Behind the mask, Peter gaped a bit. “That... that guy’s a jerk. Wow, he’s such a jerk I can’t even––” He gestured with his bag, then stopped. “Uh. Mr. Fantastic?”

“Yes?”

“They’re incapacitated by ice from the inside, but now he’s gone, that’s probably gonna start melting soon. Can these recover from that?”

Reed sighed. “Yes. Unless we fully dismantle them. Melting them down is often the only sure-fire way to prevent them twitching back to life sometime later down the line. You, kid, are gonna help me carry these down to our disposal chamber.”

“Yeah, definitely. I saw those things in action, and I don’t want to see ‘em again.”

“Who was that guy? Did he tell you anything?” Reed stretched out one arm long enough to sweep up three Doom-bots.

“I overheard a lot. He said he was a god, I think, but that’s... marginally insane.” Spidey shrugged. “So were the nightmare-monsters with high-tech shock-collars, though, so I think ‘insane’ isn’t the detractor that it used to be.”

“Welcome to earth, Spider-man. It’s like this more often than you might think.”

“Oh, trust me, I’ve got some ideas,” Peter sighed, picking up two Doom-bots, struggling more with their unwieldy bulk than their heaviness. “Where do you want ‘em, boss-man?”

“This way, please.”

 

~~

 

Lyra Walker reappeared outside JARVIS’ surveillance, and began walking toward the reconstructed Stark Industries tower, which even now still notably had only an “A” left where it had formerly displayed the Stark name. She was more worn out than she cared to admit: exerting so much power, even avoiding excessive magic-use by resorting to Jotunn form and powers, with only half one’s soul present, on _Midgard_ of all places, was exhausting.

She was not altogether surprised when a blonde woman, tall and curvaceous and stunning, fell in step with her just before she reached the perimeter of JARVIS’ awareness. “You’re not looking your best, darling.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Lyra lied, meeting the Enchantress’ gaze. “What are you doing here this fine night, Amora?”

“Sharing news from old home,” she offered.

“Oh?”

“Yes, there’s a bit of a disturbance going on, with Malekith I think.”

Lyra’s spine stiffened. _Already?_ “I see.”

“And you’re the only one who can go some of the places he does,” she mused. “So, of course, it’s only a matter of time before they consult you. Presuming it’s you in that cell up there.”

Lyra swallowed tightly. “Thank you for the news.”

“You look pale.”

“I’m very tired. Very, very tired.” She ran a hand through her hair, feeling the ache of self-separation very keenly all of a sudden. It burned, and needed desperately to be refreshed very soon, especially if Loki in Asgard was going to need to be on full alert, fully functional and competent for what was to come. Just thinking about that undertaking made the exhaustion all the more acute, because there were things Loki hadn’t finished working out yet, and for the first time he began to wonder if he might be reaching his limit. The time away from the front lines of his own machinations had been such a relief, so unexpectedly soothing to places within the trickster’s mind that he hadn’t even known were still wounded. “This is going to be a long, _long_ week.”

“Are you all right?” Amora sounded genuinely concerned.

“No,” Loki said. “I haven’t been for ages, Amora. Not since a while before I fell, and the fall was not help whatsoever.”

She touched Lyra’s arm, then, pulled her in close for an embrace: unexpected, but good. Necessary, just now. Lyra let her forehead press against Amora’s collarbone and relaxed leadenly with a stuttering sigh. They both heard the sound of an expensive car pulling up nearby behind them, but ignored it.

“Is your farce while you hide helping, then?” Amora asked. Always a little too perceptive for comfort, sometimes.

“They’re only mortals,” Lyra murmured, very quietly.

“Mortals always force us to gain perspective,” the Enchantress said softly. “Because of what they are, and how they never last long enough for how impressive they really are. I’ve learned that lesson too often to risk hiding among them, as one of them, ever since the dark ages.”

Loki wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Amora spoke about her time amongst mortals after her original exile so seldom––even the trickster had no idea that she might have reason to avoid speaking of it because of painful memories, rather than dull ones.

The Enchantress kissed Lyra’s temple gently. “The mortals you’ve chosen to hide behind are more impressive than mine were, so much more. You’re horribly lucky, but your foolishness may just balance that out, if you let them anchor you as much as your brother has.”

“I’m not in that sort of danger-”  
“Yes you are. I’m being kind and telling you now, because I remember how you looked when you were in love before, and I can tell that you no longer do, or you’d see yourself nearing it again, just a little, but dangerously so.”

“That’s absurd.” Lyra started to try and pull back, meeting Amora’s gaze as the Enchantress only tightened her hold.

“Loki,” she whispered, too quiet for mortal ears, or the ears of their listening machines. “You aren’t in love yet, but you look so much more like yourself now, as you used to be before you fell, than you have at any other time since your return. I watched your fight tonight, and you looked more like my dear old friend, with whom I conducted so much mischief when we were children learning the same magics, who made me feel less like I was going mad so far from home in those early years of exile. I don’t want to lose this part of you again, because I’ve missed you, and you hurt far more without it.”

“I cannot be so changed as that,” Lyra whispered, sounding a little strangled.

“I’ve been watching you closely since you came back from the dead, my dear, because no one else who knows you is able, and I will not be alone in my exile with only servants and Skurge to keep me company, if I can help it. You brought yourself back into my life, you let me offer you kinship, and you of _all people_ know how possessive I can be of those I wish to keep.”

The trickster stared at her, eyes wide. “I––I did not know that you-”

“I know.”

“I don’t know how-”

“I know.”

Swallowing thickly, the god of lies took hold of her forearms and squeezed. “You are a truly astonishing manipulator, my friend.” Despite her words, she was smiling in a manner that was only soft and cracked and affectionate. “Only you could trick me into recalling affection by means like this.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I can’t thank you. Not with––how difficult things already were, without my heart being a factor.”

“It was always a factor. It’s what’s holding back your full recovery.”

“Not only that,” Lyra said, “though you’re not wrong, perhaps.”

Someone cleared their throat nearby.

Lyra turned her head, glancing back to see Tony Stark standing there looking curious and a bit amused, as well as worried. She relaxed a little, at that; it was easy to tell that he hadn’t been listening or he’d appear more suspicious than concerned. “Hello, Tony.”

“You, ah, busy?”

“Only a little. Tony Stark, this is Amora, a very old friend of mine.”

“I’m not here to steal her, I promise,” Amora offered, nodding acknowledgement to him as she offered a playful, flirtatious smile. “I’m not for her taking.”

“Nor is he,” Lyra warned softly.

Amora eyed him up and down with open, predatory appreciation. “Pity.”

“Hey,” Lyra said, soft and fond, tugging one of Amora’s arms. “I’ll meet you for drinks later. I’ve got duties here lately, and really it’s all quite sad, but I’ll return to you.” A flicker of mischief and trickster-smile showed, then, before fading again behind tiredness and masks. “You have my word.”

“Fine.” She dropped a kiss on Lyra’s brow before pulling away and waving at Tony vaguely before she turned from them both and strode away. “Lovely to meet you, Mr. Stark.”

“Same,” the inventor responded vaguely, his gaze fixed on her hips despite himself, because he was taken, but he was far from blind, and it would be tragic for beauty like that to ever go unappreciated. “Damn, Lyra. Tell me, please, that you’ve tapped that.”

“She was always more interested in my brother, but she is a great friend,” Lyra said simply. “Far better than I’ve credited her with before, perhaps.”

“It’s always a strange feeling when that happens,” Tony mused, and watched her nod as her eyes lingered on Amora until the blonde disappeared around a corner, further down the street. “So you were with her instead of at sushi?”

“For a while, yes. Unexpected meeting: those are common with her, though.”

“Need a ride?”

“I wouldn’t turn it down.”

“You look exhausted, actually. Are you all right?”

“No, but you’ve known that the whole time you’ve known me,” Lyra replied, smiling wearily. “Like recognizing like.”

Tony swallowed tightly, at that. “You’re more ‘not okay’ than usual, I mean.” He wrapped and arm around her shoulders carefully. “You cold?”

“Not that I feel.”

“Come to the car, yeah?”

She merely nodded, and let him lead her away. She settled into the front passenger seat of the car when he opened the door and shut her eyes. It had been too long since the last trip to Asgard to keep from stretching Loki’s most impressive single magic trick of all: the one at the center of all the grand machinations, and upon which so much depended.

It was so convenient, after all, when no one was chasing you because they were certain you were already caught. So certain, because they could see you in your cell, and visit you, and converse with you. Oh yes, it was perfect. Except for the pain and slightly weakened magic at too great distance, of course.

“You look like you’re getting sick. Tell me it’s not infectious,” Tony said dryly, as he started the car.

“Not sick, just tired. I’ve been stretched a bit thin, actually.”

“Doing what?”

Lyra smiled a little crookedly. “A lot, actually, before you hired me, but working vacation is still working.”

“Vacation?” Tony shot her an odd look.

“Your presence anywhere that you go is big, shiny and obvious,” Lyra murmured. “It’s easy to go mostly unnoticed around you, except by you and yours, of course, but given the alternatives, I’d prefer that you all notice me rather than the alternatives. This is a vacation for me, in that regard.”

“You could’ve mentioned people possibly being after you.”

“How did you read my resumé and list of achievements and not work out that something like that might be a factor?”

The inventor snorted. “Okay, fine, yeah, I’m not exactly surprised. Anything to do with the monster today?”

Lyra shook her head. “No, but I didn’t need that sort of attention-grabbing event occurring anywhere near me,” she lied. “My friend gave me news from home.”

“It’s good to know that you _do_ have one.”

“A friend?” She shot him a glare.

“A home.”

“Hardly,” Lyra countered, more bitterly than she intended. “It’s where she and I are from, but we aren’t exactly still welcome there any longer. No more than that.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve been there.”

“Have you?” She shot him a mildly incredulous look.

“It was about a month after my mother died, and started the first time my dad told me he never wanted to see my face again,” Tony said softly.

“Ah,” Lyra said. “I didn’t mean to-”

“S’fine. Ancient history.” He shot her a look. “You’ve never mentioned your dad, really, I notice.”

“Ancient history indeed,” Lyra mused.

“But he’s alive?”

She nodded. “Yes. And full of disapproval, always. I supposed it helped, somewhat, finding out that part of the reason I would never be good enough to merit that approval is because I’m simply not his by blood. It wasn’t helpful in any other sense, however, to learn that so late in my life, and at the worst possible time.”

“Wow.”

Lyra attempted wry, dismissive smile, with limited success. “Yes.”

“That’s pretty horrible. What was the timing, though?”

“My brother was going to be given something I was never intended to be worthy of, but had been told for a long time that I had an equal chance of getting,” she said slowly. “Older brother. Not adopted.”

“Oh. Oh, shit.”

Lyra rubbed at her eyes. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like discussing it. There’s no reason I should even bother thinking about it, let alone––” She gestured vaguely, then sighed and muttered, “I’m trying not to get attached to you people, you know. You need to stop being so unfair about it.”

“Why don’t you want to get attached to us?”

“Why does anyone fear attachment, Tony?” She shot him a cynical half-smile with no real humor in it whatsoever. “It will make it more difficult to leave when she’s either stable or cured.”

“You don’t have to fuck off entirely just because we won’t desperately need you for this one specific thing anymore, you know.”

“I probably will, actually,” 

“Why?”

She shook her head slowly. “Various reasons. Few to actually do with you.”

“You know, I think this is the most honest I’ve seen you without having to piss you off first,” Tony mused. “It’s like you’ve decided you like me or something.”

“I’ve liked you from the start, but your reasons to distrust me were all quite well-merited, and I found it terribly fun to get you flustered.”

“I’m working that out, yeah.”

“Such a pity you’re straight,” Lyra mused.

“Uhm. What.”

After a few moments of thoughtful staring out through the windshield and blinking, Lyra concluded, “I really _am_ out of it.”

“I’m still trying to process what you just said and how that could possibly make sense to you in this context.”

“I’m more queer than I look,” she offered, which was fairly true.

“Uh... I’m not entirely sure I want to know.”

“Now that’s also a pity, really,” the trickster mused.

“You’re beginning to make me feel better about your missing out on the sushi chef. I don’t know if she’s really into that.”

Lyra giggled a little. “I can be a lot of things, for a lot of people, but I prefer to be exclusively myself, and that’s where things would be bound to get strange.”

“Are you actually a man, or something?”

She smiled faintly. “Would you actually be less attracted to me if I were?”

“Whoever is responsible for your breasts does fantastic work, I’m just saying. Or are they less attached than they seem? Because that would depress me, just a little, thinking of those as fake to quite that degree.”

Sniggering helplessly, Lyra slid down a bit in her seat. This moment, right here, was priceless. “Lyra Walker has always been biologically female, you can rest assured.”

“...I’m still confused.”

“Better than the alternative for you, at this juncture.”

“When I say ‘confused’ I mean ‘morbidly curious’ you know.”

“When you’re flustered and catty and off-balance, you look like you need to be bent over a table and fucked,” she said simply. “Well. You look like that to me. And I wouldn’t turn down a chance to do so, if circumstances were different.”

“Oh. As in... uh...”

“I’m not exactly pliant and submissive with men like you.”

“There aren’t many men like me out there.”

“And the rest bore me, really, for the most part,” Lyra added. “Women of high intellect and ambition, at least, can tend to be less predictable.”

“You’re a very strange, disconcertingly attractive, and terrifying woman.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

They drove the rest of the way in fairly comfortable silence, with only intermittent banter, until they arrived at the tower.

“Goodnight, Lyra. And hey, Pepper’s been very stable since the incident, and having exerted some power, she should remain so tomorrow, according to my own calculations as well as yours. So... Well, if you need to stay in tomorrow and recover a bit, just let me know.”

“Thank you, I may do so. Goodnight, Tony.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *"O'Toole's Law" is a tip of the hat to the woman responsible for getting me into writing fanfiction in the first place: the writer formerly known as Mistful. Murphy's Law, of course, is "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." Mistful, in her fiction, additionally cited: "O'Toole's law - Murphy was an optimist."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trickster runs repair on his great and terrible trick.
> 
> The woman of fire is drawn to the cold.
> 
> The inventor bearing light finds more than he bargained for in front of his light, and less than expected behind it.
> 
> A lifting of obscurity.

Sneaking back into Asgard wasn’t as easy as it once was, but Loki was nothing if not experienced at not getting caught at it. The trickiest part, really, was getting Hel to agree to corroborate his story if she were ever asked about it.

Usually, he need only be a certain distance from his cell, and slip into a dream-like state for about an hour as he underwent a sort of soul-refreshment process: recombination, assimilation of divided experience from each copy of himself that might have been missed, and repair of damages caused by the long separation; however, he was now reaching the limits of how much that could hold back the unpleasant side-effects and possible messy ends that could come of this madness.

But the only way to sustain a copy of himself for as long as he required was to maintain the careful balance between connectedness, and separation, of his mind, body, soul, and magics. The totality of the duplication, using only himself as resources, was the sort of mad idea that had killed many mages before him; only natural shape-shifters with powerful magic in their blood, usually Aesir, Vanir, or Jotunn in origin, had ever attempted it. None else could survive the change: one very dense body combined into two others, adapting the same form to each separate body in spite of the loss of mass. Most died before they could finish that initial separation, and stabilize both forms enough to decide which would carry the soul. That was where Loki had taken it further than any of the old stories, because he was brilliant and also hated himself.

The soul bit was the really genius aspect wherein his artistry and strength of will best shone, but also the most dangerous part to perform, particularly whilst he had been recovering from the blow his magic had taken from the will-undermining truth “I am not what I have always believed myself to be, to my blood and my bones” and all that revelation did to nearly shatter him at his very core.

Had he not been more than a bit... _not himself_ after that nearly-psyche-collapsing revelation and having to hold his magic and himself together while rebuilding the foundations of _self_ and _will_ and _control_ accordingly... well, he wouldn’t have been in the right frame of mind to consider completely splitting himself in half as he realized that there was no means to win, only a means by which he might try to end Jotunnheim and stop the threat of war with them forever, which had seemed like a good idea at the time.

In retrospect, Loki wasn’t at all certain his sanity had actually come back together until he had been forced to return to himself––his wiliest, most dangerous, most recklessly prideful and masterfully manipulative true self––in order to survive Thanos and come up with plans to end him with more finality than any previous attempts made by more powerful gods and greater heroes than even Asgard could boast. Loki had realized, not long after Thanos lifted him out of the crater he’d landed in so very far away from home and stabilized his failing health in exchange for “future service” (and myriad power fantasies promised therein) that he could do what none of those before him could to the would-be demigod, and that saved him from falling apart: both halves of him, despite the distance. He’d held on, knowing all he really needed was time, to make Thanos regret ever believing that saving a trickster’s life allowed him to then own it and try and twist it into a tool for casual use.

Even broken as no creature should ever be, and still alive to feel as much, Loki could cling to three things: pride, deadly patience, and showmanship. He wasn’t about to stop now, not having already come so far.

 

Now here he was, disguised as his own daughter, visiting the other half of himself in an Asgardian prison cell. He used no magic: merely changed his shape and his clothing before arrival, so as to set off no alarms.

Hel was treated with all the respect she was due as a queen. When she stated that she was there to visit her father, no one asked for evidence that Odin might be aware of her presence. They merely stepped aside, and let her in. They even let her into his cell, upon request.

Loki the prisoner looked up, and smiled widely. “Very good.”

“As planned,” Loki-as-Hel replied. Their experiences were separated by 24 hours. Each night, when they slept, they would exchange enough memories to keep them of the same mind. This would be the first re-establishment of the separation to involve touch since the incident with the tesseract. They had met again then, briefly, before Loki the Conqueror had made his appearance before a crowd in Germany. It had been too long since then, but thankfully they had not been separated by distance as vast as... before New York.

Loki-as-Hel reached out, proffering a hand.

Loki the prisoner wrapped his own around it.

They both twitched a little at the sudden shock of it, but kept their expressions unaffected. It was strange, merging trains of thought and memory while still awake. Very jarring. Slightly painful. The bone-deep relief of some pressure deep within their very bones abated some, healed some.

“I hadn’t even realized how much that ached,” Loki said, in his own voice.

The part of himself still disguised as Hel smiled a bit thinly. “I had.”

“Distance. And magic is always a little weaker in Midgard.”

They pretended to converse quietly for several minutes, not moving much, still just touching. It was being whole and entirely clear-headed for the first time in over a year now––over a year since fall and impossibly distant separation. “I don’t want to keep doing this.”

“Almost done,” the prisoner reminded him.

“I know.”

“I know that you know. I also know you needed to hear it.”

Loki smirked. “I did forget how annoying echoes like that are.”

“Ridiculous and uncomfortable, like this entire situation, yes.”

“It was your idea as much as mine.”

“Stop stating the obvious.”

Loki-as-Hel snorted and shook her head.

“You are insane, Loki.”

“Yes. Yes I am.”

They let go, and looked at each other. “It’s strange,” said the one disguised as Hel, “seeing us from this perspective. Your hair is still...” A brief gesture.

“You should talk. I hadn’t realized just how surreal it is to talk to myself like... this.” Loki of the cell gestured toward his other self, wearing such a perfect mimicry of Hel’s form: shape-shifting, rather than glamour. Things were freshly mixed now: both forms felt as though they had each spent months in prison, while also spending those months running around on earth. By the end of the day, one half, or other, of the experience, would seem the more dream-like and distant, until sleep took them, and it would begin again in the morning.

Every day, after every visit to dream, they woke anew and had recall which half they were, that particular day.

“All of this is surreal.”

“Very true.”

They made a show of goodbyes, and a feigned argument, and then Loki-as-Hel left the cell. She left the prison, and vanished just before Odin found out that she’d made any sort of appearance in Asgard at all.

 

~~

 

Lyra returned to earth before noon, and was subject to the very strange experience of trying to remain doctorly toward a very concerned Pepper Potts who seemed intent on making sure her doctor was doing okay.

“I’m fine, really,” Lyra insisted.

“Tony seemed worried about you. And this is Tony we’re talking about.”

“I... am not sure how to respond to this.”

Pepper took both of her hands and held them as though trying to warm her fingers a little, though they weren’t very cold at the time. “He also said something about you possibly having plans to vanish once I don’t need you to keep me from spontaneous combustion and such.”

“Those have been the main Plan A plans so far, yes,” Lyra said. “But I’m finding the idea more uncomfortable lately.”

“Lyra, I really like you. I––I do. I don’t want you to leave us thinking you can never come back or anything. You’re free to go anytime, of course, but I want to know you’re still out there, see you around maybe often. I’ve only just gotten to know you a little, but the more I know of you the more I like you.”

“That won’t always be the case.”

“I think, actually, that it might.”  
“There are––if I were to stay, or return, you would eventually find out who I am. Or Tony will figure it out, and the fallout of that might disrupt a number of things.”

“Why, Lyra? Who are you?”

“I’m a lie, Pepper. My face, my appearance, this body, is not me. I shape-shift. This is false. And I could be anyone behind it.” She swallowed thickly. “I’m someone who has pained you before.”

“But not now.”

“I’m not at war at the moment. I’m waiting.”

“For another to start?”

“It might kill me.”

“Then let us help.”

“I can’t, anymore than I can tell you what I’ve done and who I-” She stopped when Pepper kissed her. Stopped talking, stopped breathing for a moment, and stopped thinking because words suddenly had no meaning in a world where something quite this surprising could happen. The kiss was brief, but not quite chaste, not with the way Pepper breathed her in, and how her tongue darted out, briefly, to taste, chased by Lyra’s so they brushed briefly just before they both pulled apart. “Oh.”

“I, uh... I’m still with Tony, but, I––I’m way too fond of you, I think,” Pepper said softly, sounding a bit lost. “I didn’t actually mean to do that.”

“No complaints. You taste a bit like apricots.” Lyra couldn’t help but smile a little as the other woman blushed scarlet.

“You’re handling this very calmly.”

“I’m thinking,” Lyra said softly, squeezing Pepper’s hands gently. “You’re only going to be more angry at me later, because of this.”

“Why?”

“I’m not––” She hesitated a moment, then gave a small, half-hysterical and humorless laugh. “Pepper, I’m not even a woman.”

Pepper blinked, looked Lyra up and down with renewed interest. “Shape-shifting?”

“Shape-shifting.”

“You, uh... you do good work.”

Lyra blushed slightly before she could prevent it. “Thank you.”

“Can I––can I see you, sometime?”

“I think that’s now inevitable, but I don’t think you’ll like it.”

“Why?”

“You may know my face.” Lyra swallowed tightly.

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”

“Not nearly as much as I will, even if all goes well. Amora will never stop laughing at me,” Lyra mused.

“Who?”

“Old friend. She’s very pretty and very blonde and I’ve never been interested in her that way, because she’s always lusted far too obviously after my brother, which would kill anyone’s mood. I also told her off for eyeing Tony last night.”

“Oh, yeah, he mentioned her.” Pepper covered her mouth with one hand. “I’m... I can’t believe I kissed you.”

“Neither can I. I thought that you were the saner one.”

“I know! Me too! Well, I’d hoped.”

Lyra sniggered a little, standing up and settling her arms around Pepper’s waist lightly, almost hesitantly. “You love him,” she reminded. “You do not love me.”

“This is true. Both of these things are true,” Pepper murmured, nodding.

“And yet, you still want me.”

“Well... he might too, which is encouraging.”

“He doesn’t like men.”

“Oh. Oh, you’re right. I think? Mostly?”

Lyra raised an eyebrow slowly. “Mostly?”

“He, uh, had a few weird dreams after the invasion, actually,” Pepper said. “There was one that caused me to find him laying on the kitchen counter far too early in the morning, and declaring that his danger fetish had reached a degree that made him less certain he was 100% heterosexual, but not to worry about it because defenestration has never been a turn-on in the real world.”

For a long moment, Lyra remained very still and quiet.

“You’re looking conflicted.”

“I’m... feeling conflicted.”

“You won’t resolve that conflict unless you attempt to seduce my boyfriend in male form, and as strangely hot as that sort of sounds, I’m not sure it’s a good idea at all. Like... at all, at all.”

“Humans, seriously, how are you both only human?”

“How are you not, and yet you’re still far more functional socially and insofar as life-plans than most genuine human beings I’ve met in my life?”

“Well... the differences aren’t exactly vast. Except life-span, strange powers, magic, et cetera.”

“Ability to turn into an unfairly attractive green-eyed woman,” Pepper mused.

“The eyes are my own, actually.”

“Oh. They’re lovely.”

“Thank you,” Lyra said softly. “Yours are as well.”

“So...”

“I’ll consider. I need time to think, as do you, I believe.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “What is my life?”

“Astonishingly good, a bit impossible, and very impressive, actually, from what I’ve seen so far.”

She laughed a little, despite herself. “Well. That’s all true.” After a thoughtful moment, she brushed her lips against Lyra’s again, just the lightest, fleeting touch. “That’s the last you get until I know more about who you are.”

Lyra felt a strange mixture of amusement, anticipation, and fear at the very idea. “Well, then. We’ll have to see.”

That was when Happy knocked on the office door, shouting about badges again, causing them to jump apart. They exchanged eloquent glances and simultaneously resolved to drop the subject, for now.

 

~~

 

Dream-walking at this juncture was probably unwise; however, Loki could not resist. Not in the least. He could not even refrain from letting himself make a bit of a presentation of it, knowing all that he did.

Tony’s dream thus started out at a party, possibly a gala or charity ball, with everyone in masks.

Lyra appeared first, wearing an elegant black mask embroidered in gold and emerald around the edges, that covered her face from brow to nearly her upper lip; it had cheekbones only a little sharper, and almost more masculine, than her natural ones. “Having fun, Mr. Stark?”

“I thought I’d told you to call me Tony.”

She smiled a little. “Well spotted.”

“Your eyes and voice combined are pretty distinctive, m’lady,” the inventor responded and took her hand, bowing to kiss the back of it.

“So I’m told.” She then pulled back her hand. “Pepper is in the back corner over there. She’s in the dress you like.”

“Thanks,” Tony said, and went off to find her. As happens in dreams, he got distracted, and eventually told she was in three other places, none of which she could be found in. Tired by then, the inventor sat down at the bar to rest. He’d taken off his mask, as had everyone else sitting at the bar, which was possibly something to do with checking IDs. He didn’t notice how familiar the man next to him was until a little too late.

“You owe me a drink, Mr. Stark,” Loki said at his ear.

Tony jerked back, staring. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Relaxing. You?”

“The opposite of relaxing, now, _because_ you are here.”

Loki offered him a charming smile. He wore a very fine black suit, and an emerald dress shirt, almost metallic-looking but not overly shiny, with no tie. Top two buttons open. His hair was still long and dark, and a bit better-kept than his true-shape in Asgardian prison could manage, these days. There was an elegant black mask embroidered in gold and emerald as his elbow. “No harm in that, is there?”

“Depends on whether you’re really here, I guess?” Tony started to look around the room a bit more shrewdly. “Since this is a dream.”

“Well-spotted.”

“Strike one.”

“Hmm?”

“Thor warned us you have a bit of a fondness for petty revenge, and also have the ability to walk into people’s dreams, which he wasn’t sure they’d be able to prevent you doing from prison. One of the things he mentioned to keep an eye out for, was someone other than me aware that they were in a dream.”

“Oh, and you’ve dreamt about me before, then, and I didn’t know?”

Tony frowned. “Get out of my head.”

“I’m doing you no harm, Tony.”

“Yeah, with you, that just makes me more suspicious. What _are_ you doing?”

“I’m bored, and you’re one of few people on this planet who qualify as interesting.” He shrugged. “Not a lot to do while I’m incarcerated, either.”

“Run out of more local minds to mess with while they sleep?”

“Interesting ones. There’s only a bit more of them, percentage-wise, in the population of Asgard. Most of them are also very dull.”

Tony’s expression was hard to read. “You’re... talking a bit differently than before.”

“I’m relaxed as opposed to at war, and I’ve been picking up a bit of local culture.”

“Why? You weren’t very impressed with ‘local culture’ here before.”

“Was I not?” Loki’s eyes were bright with mischief. “Or was that just a part of the act you’re more comfortable with arbitrarily deciding to consider more sincere than the nonsense about freeing people from freedom?”

“Well, I knew that was bullshit, yeah. You knew that would shake up anyone American and patriotic who heard it, and you were going out of your way to make Fury and Steve think you were the devil himself.”

“I’m the god of lies,” Loki said. “Not the father of them. I’m going to attribute that charming title to Odin, who so lately has proved deserving of it.”

“That’s a bit of obscure christian-ish mythology there. How much time have you really spent on earth?” Tony asked, eyes narrowing.

“Quite some time, actually. I’m only half in prison, you see.”

“What?” the inventor asked flatly.

“Unless I’m a dream, or just openly lying to you,” Loki added, smile widening.

Tony rubbed a hand over his face. “So you’re here just to annoy me?”

“No. I have a purpose in mind.”

“Well, shit, then, because I have no clue what you could possibly hope to accomplish here.” Tony then fell quiet as the trickster rose to his feet and stood directly in front of him, so he was stuck between Loki (too close) at his front, and the bar counter at his back. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Loki folded his arms behind him and eyed the inventor head to toe thoughtfully. “I had considered you the most dangerous of the Avengers, in any long-term sense. The Hulk would be more dangerous if he could only harness more of Banner’s intellect. Then, oh, how great and terrible he could be, but you, Tony Stark, are a different matter entirely. You are a danger because the longer you look into someone, the better you know them, the easier they are for you to destroy; however, killing you would be a tragically short-sighted venture, for your mind would be lost, and it is worth about as much as a tesseract, given what you’re capable of doing with it.”

Tony swallowed tightly. This, he reminded himself silently, was probably not a Loki from inside his own head. This was the original. That somehow didn’t help his heartbeat slow down at all. “Is this going somewhere?”

“Possibly.” He reached out, tapped the arc-reactor dead center, and then let two fingertips trace around the outer edge, very slowly.

The inventor didn’t look away, holding Loki’s gaze all the while. He wasn’t sure what was worse: the awareness that Loki might rip it out, or the fact that this wasn’t helping the problem of the adrenaline and the mind games making Tony feel a bit hot under the collar. Also not helping: the pretty, only slightly psychotic smile on Loki’s also-too-pretty face. “Are you flirting with me?”

“If I am?”

“I don’t like men.”

“You like me, though.”

“I don’t _like_ you––much. I mean, given a choice of villains to have a strange crush on me? Better you than most anyone else on the ‘enemies’ list, but a lot of them on that list are dead these days, so don’t feel too flattered.”

“So you wouldn’t be interested in seeing me without my clothes then?”

Tony opened his mouth, but no sound came out and he shut it after a few seconds. He cleared his throat. “I’m happily involved in a monogamous relationship,” he said slowly, but firmly.

“I’m a dream,” Loki chided. “And I’m far, far away.”

“Half of you,” Tony said, eyes narrowing. “What of the rest?”

“Well. I could be anywhere.”

“Or anyone.”

Loki considered retreat, after some distracting nightmares to try and cause Tony to forget that too-close-to-true little deduction. He decided against it, if only because reckless curiosity had so often served him better than sensible retreat in matters like this: where he could flee, or he could just keep pushing. “Possible, but no one would believe you if you told them, even if you managed to find me, which I doubt.”

Tony tilted his head a little. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah, I dunno how I can tell, or about which particular specifics, but you are.” He half-smiled for a moment. “Though I’ve had a lot of unusual practice there lately, so let me give it a guess.” After clicking his tongue, he added, “You don’t believe a word of what you just said, I don’t think. I could find you, you’re not just anyone, and there’s someone, or a number of them, who would believe me.”

“And this is why I’m flirting with you,” Loki purred. “Well. One reason.”

“You have more than one reason?” Tony’s disbelief was not subtle. Neither, unfortunately, was the shiver that ran down his spine when Loki traced the line of his jaw slowly with two fingers, tilting his chin up a bit. That was just sort of embarrassing, as was Tony’s inability to find the desire to push the god away. “I’m in love with a woman I care a lot about, please stop this,” he said, sounding more steady than he actually felt.

Loki let go. He moved back a little, his hands now in his pockets.

Tony stared a bit. “That’s it?”

“I’m a monster, but in some regards more than others. I’ve never seen the appeal of an unwilling participant in certain activities, and while I do enjoy petty revenge, options along such lines as these would disgust even me, Tony Stark. I do have taste, and a bit of honor under the amorality, constant barrages of lies, manipulative mind-games, and ever-present seething anger covered by a slightly manic mask.”

“Okay. Good, then?”

“You sound so unsure.”

“You weren’t really here to seduce me. There’s nothing productive you could really do with it, and that bit of self-summarizing commentary was almost disconcertingly sincere, by your standards, so...” Tony gestured vaguely. “What the fuck is this about, and was it necessary to make me question my sexuality to get to whatever it actually is?”

“Think on it,” Loki prompted, returning to his sear. “I want to see your efforts, and what you come up with.”

“Your magic is bound, while you’re imprisoned.”

“I’m enclosed within a secure cell, with wards that prevent the casting of any spells within a certain radius. I can use my powers which don’t rely on that, however.”

“Not illusions, though.”

The trickster nodded.

“So whatever you did so you’re in two places at once, you did such that there’s no magical upkeep you’d need from the captured part. That can’t be easy, those illusion-versions of yourself were really basic: they looked real, but more than about three and they had trouble moving independently instead of as a single unit, and they were pretty breakable.”

Loki nodded again, and ordered a glass of wine.

“You did something unusual, I think. Something Asgard wouldn’t be able to trace, so it must be new or unexpected, and if it’s new or unexpected to the likes of Asgard, given how long they’ve known you and how long they’ve been using magic, it had to be something crazy. When did you start it?”

“Before my great fall. I don’t suppose Thor mentioned much about that?”  
“He did, a bit. I only remember because I interrogated him a lot about the bi-frost, because seriously, I want one.”

Loki laughed, bright and wild. “Your arrogance is astonishing.”

“You should talk, Mr. You-Will-All-Fall-Before-Me,” the inventor shot back. “As you set about losing, on purpose, which still makes me nervous.”

“I got what I needed from you all.”

“Yeah, I’m sure we were real _useful_.” He shot Loki a cold look, then, shrewd and appraising. “You shouldn’t try to use me again. I don’t like it.”

“What if I asked nicely?”

“I’d consider negotiating terms like full disclosure.”

“Ooh, you would like that, now, wouldn’t you? I don’t disclose in full to anyone, Tony. It comes with the territory.”

“Right, right, god of lies, but if I don’t know what you’re up to, to the point I feel comfortable with the lengths you’ve gone to for prevention of civilian casualties, like you really badly neglected over New York? Then fuck you. Try harder.”

Loki’s smile didn’t fade, nor did the glitter of mischief behind his expression, but his eyes darkened and something else showed there for a moment––hunger, perhaps, or challenge. “You would still, however, negotiate with myself.”

Tony hesitated. “I might. I’ve seen worse than you, and I think you did too, on the other side of that portal. They fucked you up, didn’t they?”

The trickster’s smile dropped entirely. “That is none of your business.”

“It is if they’re still interested in earth. If it had all just been about the tesseract, they could have sent someone along with you, to kill you or just nick the tesseract while you were off with your irons in a few other fires, or maybe just while you were distracting us in Germany. On top of that, if half of you was here while they were fucking you up on the other side of that portal, I bet you were ready for them, ready for everything to do with that invasion and pissing them off as much as possible. You put things in motion to let them think they won, and that you’re locked away safe at home, and that earth is more advanced and _interesting_ than they thought.”

“You worked this out before now.”

“Yeah, but it’s more obvious than ever, _now_ , you absolute bastard.” He moved to toss his drink in the trickster’s face, just because.

Loki raised a hand, and the liquid hung in mid-air for a moment, then reappeared in the inventor’s glass. His expression was wolfish and intently focused, now. Then, very slowly, he began to smirk. “You like it.”

Tony frowned at his drink briefly, then took a sip. “I really don’t, not while you’re still putting my planet in danger.”

“Not for long, and my home will be in far more trouble than yours,” Loki offered.

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I failed them, Tony Stark, and they know where I am.”

The inventor considered that. “Are you seriously looking to make a deal with me or something? Did you think seduction was a good starting tactic to use on a straight guy, I mean-”

He fell quiet as the trickster moved _far_ too quickly, pinning him bodily back against the bar this time: close and pressed flush against his front. Tony could feel oddly cool breath against his lips and swallowed tightly. To his intense discomfiture, it didn’t feel––bad. Not with that look on Loki’s face––barely still in focus this close-up, looking thoughtful and and intent and almost affectionate, along with a razor-sharp smile full of something fiercer––and the mind-games before it making Tony feel really _interested_. It was a bit of a shock, just how much he didn’t want to push the god away. It screamed _bad idea, bad idea_ , very loudly, but that just made the inventor want to keep pushing, see how far he could get, find out what the limits were and just how bad the crash might be when he hit them at speed.

“Okay,” he said. “So I have a danger fetish you’re exploiting, and you’re insane and brilliant in some ways that are admittedly pretty sexy, but I’m still not–– _for_ you. I’m taken, and you’re not really here. Step off before I forget that and do something I’ll regret, like get too curious, okay?” He grit his teeth, reluctantly adding, “Please?”

“If I don’t?” Loki teased. “You’re not the only one interested, here, Tony Stark. You may not generally like men, but keep in mind I’m seldom _ever_ , even _remotely_ , so intrigued by any mortals.”

Tony’s eyes widened slowly. “Uhm. Okay, so, you really do have a way with words, don’t you?”

“I do.” He trailed a hand down Tony’s side.

“Still a no, unless––” He stopped there at the mental image of Loki trying to seduce Pepper. It was more distracting than it had any right to be. “Wow, okay, maybe I’m really _not_ 100% straight.” He cleared his throat and shook his head a bit to clear it. Then he took a deep breath, smelling autumn leaves, wild herbs, and frost. “You smell good, too, not fair. Look, if you’ll stop sexually harassing me in dreams, and maybe want to try a more diplomatic option for getting my help to achieve a goal, I’ll listen, but not because you’re attractive, okay?” He swallowed thickly. “I can’t believe just I said that.”

“Why then?”  
“Because whatever they did to you was probably worse than what you did to us, including the dead, if it’s anything like the nightmares I keep having about the things they’re letting in from––somewhere not here.”

Loki released him, then, pulling back quick enough the inventor had to stand quickly to prevent his barstool falling over with him on it. They were still a bit too close for comfort, but by a few inches instead of a few centimeters now. The look he shot Tony was cold and wary and difficult to read. “You’re not bad with words yourself.”

Tony swallowed tightly. “Yeah. Well. Stick around, I’m impressive at a lot of things.”

“Are you flirting with me?” Loki deadpanned.

“Well... maybe a little.” He exhaled slowly. “While you’re a bit off-balance and feeling well-disposed toward me as well as sufficiently stung by my accurate verbiage so you’ll have trouble lying quite as effectively: was that actually what this was all really about? A deal?”

“Let’s say,” the trickster mused, “That I got more than I set out for, and I’m suspicious of that, and not sure it’s a good idea.”

“Why?” Tony asked, genuinely curious. “I’m the hero, here. Trustworthy, I’ll keep my word, and if you give me yours and make it binding-”

“Of course Thor decides to inform people of this,” Loki muttered.

“Yeah, he did, but hey––I’m saying I’m willing to hear you out. Who else is offering _you_ that with _any_ sincerity these days?”  
The trickster released his hold on the edge of the bar-counter and stood up straighter, adjusting his cufflinks as he did so. “That is precisely what makes you a dangerous man.”

“Well, that’s one part of it.”

“Yes, this has been a bit enlightening.”

“You’re really you, and you want in my pants, and you’ve got big plans going on... yeah, I’d say I learned a few things.”

Loki smirked. “This was about getting to know you the better, Tony.”

“Since when do you call me that, anyway?”

“Perhaps you asked me to.”

Tony froze again. “Okay, my lie-detector broke. Repeat that, please?”

Loki patted him on the cheek a bit patronizingly. “Goodnight, Mr. Stark.” He turned, with intention to vanish into the crowd.

“Hey, wait a minute, you asshole, we’re not done, here!” Tony shouted, leaping to his feet and chasing after him. Loki’s height should have made him easy to spot, but Tony lost him after the third time being elbowed to the ground unexpectedly by a few people who apparently got confused between what a formal high-society gala looked like, compared to a mosh pit at a Slayer concert.

Pepper helped him up after that. “Tony, are you okay?”

“You see Loki around?” he managed, clutching his side a bit, where it felt bruised.

“Loki?” She looked confused, but only for a moment. Then she was deadly serious. “You’re joking. Please, tell me your joking.”

“I can try joking, but I’ve been so far unable to find a way to suggest a threesome with a super-villain in any way that won’t cause you to slap me,” Tony said, before he could quite reaffix his brain-to-mouth filters in place and set them to “in public” to suit the venue. “I think it’d give us a chance to distract him long enough for S.H.I.E.L.D. or the other Avengers to show up?” he suggested, lying on the spot when she shot him a murderous glare. As excuses went, it was actually not the worst he’d ever come up with.

“Tony,” she said, sounding thoroughly angry. “Wake up.”

And he did, snapping awake sharply, breathing hard. He looked over and found Pepper watching him, a bit concerned.

“Interesting dream?”

“Uh... maybe?”

“I thought it might have turned a bit nightmarish there, for a while, which was, uh,” She glanced down at his erection pointedly, “only a little odd, for you.”

Tony turned and buried his face in the pillow with a heavy sigh, then changed his mind and buried his face in Pepper’s boobs instead, sighing a little more contently as she ran fingers through his hair. “Dreams are stupid,” he muttered. He wasn’t entirely sure whether to doubt it as ‘just a dream’ or not, which was a lot of the problem really. He’d be on edge until it either happened again, or worse: if Loki showed up outside of dreamland. The prospect of that made him really uncomfortable.

“Often, yeah.” Pepper sounded amused. “So you’re not still in the mood, then?”

The inventor considered. “Let me think.” He then vanished under the covers quickly, grasping Pepper’s thighs and maneuvering himself between them as she laughed at him a little. Then he mouthed at her through her underwear and the laughter abruptly cut off, becoming a low moan. “I think I might be,” Tony said.

“Shut up and keep doing that.”

Tony laughed a little, as she tossed the blanket aside and tangled her fingers in his hair. He looked up, meeting her eyes briefly with a wicked grin. “As you wish, Pep.”

They didn’t get out of bed for a long while after that.

 

~~

 

The next few days were fairly quiet, except for the planning of a gallery opening, which Tony and Pepper seemed inclined to argue over. Lyra found the whole idea boring, and the arguments about it were about as interesting as watching paint dry. It was extreme boredom that made the trickster’s overall situational awareness suffer somewhat, so that she was ill-timed enough not to notice the door open just as she said, “If you two keep harping on about insignificant details on this mind-numbing topic, I will strip naked just to make you both too uncomfortable to continue.”

A long pause followed.

Then, from the doorway, Natasha Romanov broke the silence: “I considered that once or twice while working here, but concluded that it wouldn’t actually work. Pepper would be embarrassed, but Tony would recover in under a minute and be fine conversing with you again.”

“Marginally different situation: you’re the spy, and Tony was aware of that since when?” Lyra suggested, not missing a beat.

Pepper was bright red, and Tony was looking at Lyra with a mixture awe, amusement, and mild horror.

“True, I suppose,” Natasha mused. “Your own obvious attraction to Pepper and slightly less obvious attraction to him would also add to the situational awkwardness.”

“Wouldn’t it just?” Lyra sighed wistfully.

“Uhm,” Pepper squeaked. “Subject dropped. Hello, Natasha, what are you doing here, exactly?”

“One, I’m recuperating from this.” She indicated her left arm, which was in a sling. “Something went a bit awry in Siberia. My cover there is officially blown. Clint is working on it a bit, along with Agent Hill.”

“Don’t see her in field work much,” Tony mused.

Natasha nodded. “She jumped at the chance, really. She does miss it. Also, two, there’s been rumblings about some people targeting you, domestic types. More political unrest and a couple of psychopaths than anything major, but I’ve got files for you.” She raised a usb drive in her good hand.

Tony accepted it, and pocketed it. “You’re in a sling, so they’re putting you on light duty, which I assume means you’re bored out of your mind?”

“So bored, you have no idea,” Natasha sighed.

“Want to run surveillance at a gallery opening tonight complete with mandatory ‘this is all totally for charity’ dance? Happy is scared enough he’ll actually listen to you if Pep puts you in charge security-wise.”

She smirked a little. “Will it actually be less boring?”

“No, but we’ll be there to be bored with you,” Lyra offered.

“Fair enough.”

 

~~

 

Pepper had been prepared to deal with a great number of things that night: possible life-threatening situations, drunken millionaires trash-talking her lover, feeling only slightly insecure about her own backless dress, the works.

Lyra’s tall, elegant body wrapped in a devilishly well-cut bespoke suit, she was not entirely prepared for. Especially with that dress shirt in dark green to match her eyes, and the pale vest that showed off her narrow waist, while helping that shirt frame just a little bit of cleavage. Lyra looked like eccentric royalty enjoying a bit of leisurely disdain for the vapidness of most other humans around her.

“You’re staring, hon,” Tony pointed out.

“Uhm. Sorry. She looks really good, tonight.”

“Pep, if uh, if you’re interested in her-”

She hid her face in her hands, taking a deep breath, then blurted (quietly, at least) out, “Goddammit, I thought you would be the one with this problem!”

He stared at her for a long moment, then cleared his throat, trying very hard not to laugh. “This shouldn’t be so funny.”

“It’s ridiculous! I’ve never––not in my life––been––just-”

He pulled her close then. “Hey, hey, it’s okay.”

“How are you not freaking out about this, I know you’re jealous, and-”

“Because I love you, and I know you’re really in love with me.” He kissed her forehead. “And that you’d never forgive me for letting you too obviously freak out about this in the middle of this party.”

“One of many reasons that yes, I do love you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

“You good?”

She nodded.

“You still gonna have trouble not licking Lyra in the middle of the gallery this evening?”

“Only a little,” she said quietly.

“You’ve really got a crush on her,” Tony teased.

“You don’t?” she raised an eyebrow at him.

“Well... yes, but it’s well-tempered by respect and fear, but mostly fear.”

Pepper smiled a little. “I... She’s told me things I haven’t told you. She said you’d work out a lot if I did, so I haven’t. She’s trusted me, a lot, Tony.”

“You’re the most trustworthy person I’ve ever known, so I’m not actually shocked.”

“She... _is_ interested in you, a bit, but she’s also afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Rejection, mostly, if you work out––well...”

“Pep?”

“I like her a lot. I think––I think she’s been good for us, though. As a friend.”

“I think if I didn’t have you in my life she’d destroy me,” Tony muttered. “It might have been a glorious death, and a hell of a romance if I survived long enough for that, but she’s––not you.”

“Maybe.” She smiled a little sadly. “She doesn’t want to see you destroyed now, though. She’s afraid of that, I think, because it was easier for her to be around us when she could think of us as disposable.”

“I blame you for that.”

“She reminds me of you in some ways. She’s hurt in some of the same ways.”

Tony nodded. “But we still don’t have a clue what she’s really planning to do next, what she’s been planning since long before this.”

Pepper nodded. “I know. And, we’d have to find that out before I’d be even remotely willing to think about, uh, possible invitations?”

“Pepper Potts, you are the best girlfriend on the planet,” Tony whispered, with feeling, and kissed her softly. “Let’s go annoy pretentious people.”

She smiled up at him. “Okay.”

Then, twenty minutes later, all hell broke loose, starting with a single bullet.

Natasha, one-handed, took the man to the ground hard and in under twenty seconds, securing the weapon while two accomplices were similarly nicked by other security personnel in the crowd. “Where did the bullet go? Is anyone hurt?”

The crowd was so busy loudly expressing relief and fear, she almost couldn’t hear it when Pepper gave a muffled scream.

Lyra appeared so suddenly at her side as to make her jump and nearly burst into flame. “Oh my god, oh my god, don’t do that right now!”

“Easy,” Lyra said softly, a cold hand on her back, not enough to cool her down, but enough to help her focus.

“I’ll kill them, I swear, if they-”

“Pepper,” Lyra whispered. “Focus. I can help if you’ll let me see him.”

Tony, who had slid to the floor and had both hands over the wound, which had hit him near the bottom of his ribcage on the left, uttered a low string of curses as Pepper moved just enough to let Lyra kneel down and get a better look at him. “What are you doing, Doc?”

“Breaking cover,” she said softly. “You’re welcome in advance.” She placed a hand over both of his and closed her eyes. After a moment, she grimaced and opened them again. “Your ribs caused it to fly less than straight after impact with them. That’s not been kind to your organs.”

“You have got to be fucking joking,” Tony groaned. “Strange said you weren’t magic.”

“That he could tell,” Lyra murmured. “Also, he lied a little. I’m very persuasive, you might have noticed. By the way: this _will_ hurt.”

“Will I stop bleeding internally?”

“Yes.”

“Then get right on that, for fuck’s sake.”

Lyra closed her eyes again and focused hard, murmuring the spell and reaching out to draw pain from the wound, then begin repairs. It took a full minute, and halfway through, Tony was biting his sleeve to keep from screaming, and there was an ambulance outside. “Fuck,” Tony groaned, and passed out.

Stopping, Lyra pulled back. “That was strange. The bullet broke apart, but the spell found other metal further-” She opened her hand and saw rather more than a bullet therein. There was shrapnel, and a quick spell tracing it back to its origin proved enlightening. “Oh. Oh _that_ explains the magnet,” she muttered. Then she settled a hand over the inventor’s brow and ran a quick assessment. His heart, she noted, had a little less pain haloing it. Her other hand pocketed the metal she’d removed.

A paramedic knelt behind her. “Miss, please move. We’re here to help.”

“I’m a doctor. This man will be fine, he’s merely in shock.”

“Mind if we verify that?” he asked, calm and reassuring.  
“Lyra?” Pepper said, her voice sounding very small. “Lyra, help me, please.”

Lyra took one look at her and rose to her feet. She pulled Pepper closer, hands very cold on her back and called out, “Happy, Romanov, keep track of Tony. He doesn’t need an ambulance at this point, and should wake in a few minutes.”

“He was shot,” Romanov said flatly.

“Yes, well,” Lyra said, as her eyes bled over to red and her skin darkened, looking bluish all of a sudden. “I fixed it.” She then vanished, removing Pepper from the room full of potential casualties. She only took them as far as the roof, shifting out of Lyra-shape and into his own, because Pepper had only gotten hotter to the touch and his truer shape was stronger, as all true-shapes are for shifters. He could thus summon more cold. On the roof, Pepper could feel the change against her folded arms, but it barely registered as she struggled with the whole of her focus to keep breathing, and to hold everything in.

Loki, in the colder version of his natural form, kept hold of her as she buried her face in his neck. “I healed him,” he assured. “He’s waiting down there, you can be calm now, and kill those responsible later. Calm it, Pepper, calm the fire.”

“I can’t, I thought he was––I thought––and I _can’t_.”

“Shhh.” He cast a quick inflammability spell on her dress and his own trousers as an after-thought: no need to add only further reasons for her to panic, such as sudden public nudity. Humans could be strange that way. His shirt, he allowed to burn away, bringing more of his cold skin in contact with hers as she burned.

If not for her warmth, ice would have cocooned them by now, with how much power he was using. He’d learned his own limits, and knew he might fast reach them at this rate. “Pepper,” he said softly, “You can survive this. You’ve impressed the most cynical god Asgard has to offer with how good you’re capable of being, much to my chagrin. Please, keep impressing me.”

She shuddered a bit. “What did you say?”

“Are you with me?”

“I’m confused. And so tired. Why am I so tired?”

“You’re burning up a lot of excess energy.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re afraid.”

She unfolded her arms from against her chest and hesitantly wrapped them around his waist tightly, shuddering. “You’re so cold. It feels fantastic.”

“If not for Extremis, you’d be dead from feeling it.”

She nuzzled closer for a moment, seemingly without conscious input from her brain. “Extremis isn’t so bad, except the almost dying parts.”

Loki laughed a little, very softly, and pulled back enough to look down at her.

Her eyes widened a little with sudden realization. “Oh. Wow, you are... You really aren’t a woman, are you?”

“I am not.”

“You also aren’t wearing a shirt?”

“My skin is cold. You needed the cold, and protecting it against fire as I did the rest of our clothing would have placed an unhelpful thermal shield in my way.”

She nodded. “You’re also kind of gorgeous.”

Loki shot her an openly incredulous look.

“I’m dating Tony Stark. Did you expect me to have normal tastes?”

His lips quirked with a hint of amusement despite himself. “True enough.”

“So this is you.” She relaxed a little, as the last waves of heat faded, and her head cleared again. “And I think you just saved my life.”

“And I may never live that down, in villain circles, I’m sure.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“The coloration you see here, the blue, and the red eyes, are part of a... natural defense mechanism. When I thaw out, as it were, I look much closer to human.” He cleared his throat and summoned his clothing back into place again, followed by Lyra’s shape, though the blueness lingered, along with the cold.

That was about when Tony reached the roof, panting heavily. “What the fuck just happened?”

“A failed assassination attempt,” Lyra offered. “You’re welcome.”

“Why are you blue?” the inventor asked.

“I’m Jotunn. Why are you alone?”

“What? Yes, I am. I had no idea what to expect here, Happy would only get hurt, and Natasha is already hurt, why would I bring backup?”

“Because Natasha doubtlessly mentioned the part where odds seem good that I’m not human, and that I also am capable of healing bullet wounds and teleportation,” Lyra offered. “You’re naturally suspicious.”

“You got Pep out away from the crowd, and you saved my life. Reasons for me to be suspicious verses evidence you’re not here to kill either of us... balanced out a bit.”

Lyra narrowed her eyes a bit. “You’re still light-headed from the blood loss, aren’t you?”

“Giddy, a bit, yeah.” He strolled up to them, leaving the door to the roof entrance open. “So. You’re blue.”

“I’m Jotunn, yes.”

Tony looked thoughtful. “You can change your appearance... how far?”

“Farther than this. Magic not required. Shape-shifting is a different thing.” Her coloration faded back to normal: her green eyes bright and wary.

Tony underwent sudden epiphany. His own words, from a recent dream, came back to haunt him: _Your eyes and voice combined are pretty distinctive_... And well, they were. So much so he could kick himself. “Oh. Ohhhh, shit you little bastard,” he muttered quietly, taking a half-step back.

“Tony?” Pepper sounded worried, but stayed close to Lyra.

“Pep, you might, maybe, uhm––”

“Are you still under the impression I’d harm her?” the trickster sighed. “By the nine, what else do I have to do? Submit some sort of form? Humanity is so in love with paperwork, after all. _Is_ there a form for a villain on vacation who accidentally winds up overly fond of a couple of heroes?”

“Loki,” Tony said. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Pepper stood very still.

Loki avoided her gaze, and shifted into his true form casually: same suit, slightly different tailoring, same eyes, same hair in an only slightly different style, much like the cheekbones. “This was the least boring place I could think of to waste a bit of time on this little planet. I can’t go to any of the others; they know me better, and are more likely to spot me. Here, I can quietly manipulate the likes of Doctor Doom, S.H.I.E.L.D., and Hydra while making otherworldly arrangements via dream-walking and otherwise setting up grand revenge against people who took in a broken god and tried to make him into a mindless weapon for their little games testing the worthiness of the earth; all that, I can do from a distance, mostly, and no one would think to look for a shadow like me in the middle of your perpetual spotlight, Tony Stark. If you also happen to be the only human I’d initially ever suspected of being capable of keeping up with some of my more impressive exertions of wit and intellect, well, that just made for a promise of entertainment, does it not?” He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger for a moment as he got his breathing even again by sheer force of will. “It was a grand mistake on my part, but trust me to ignore some of the most obvious risks.”

“Sorry, what risks?” Tony asked quietly.

“I _like_ you people. That does _not_ make my life easier,” Loki snapped.

Pepper smothered a small laugh, causing them both to stare at her. “Sorry, I... You sound the same. And that’s... well, that’s just a very _you_ thing to say. I’m just realizing that you’ve _been_ you, the whole time, just with a mask on.”

The trickster swallowed tightly, trying to will himself to look away, to no avail. “Well, yes. That’s sort of the point of a vacation, for me. I don’t get the chance to do that terribly often, the rest of the time.”

“YOU WERE IN MY DREAM!” Tony snapped suddenly.

Loki’s expression became a careful blank. “Pardon?”

Tony had both hands over his face and was swearing a great deal again, pacing away from them for a moment before turning on his heel, hands down as his sides again as he stalked back toward Loki, jabbing an accusing finger his way. “You. Were trying. To seduce me. Why?”

“Wait, I missed this?” Pepper sounded deeply disappointed.

“You mentioned something, my dear Pepper, which made me curious about his preferences. It was an idle thought, of course, but interesting.” He shamelessly looked Tony up and down with appreciation. “I’m not uninterested even now.”

The inventor seemed a bit at a loss, at that. He could almost hear his own brain short-circuiting for a moment. “You are a creep, sir.”

“I’m a god over a thousand years old, from another planet. I figure I’m allowed to occasionally be ignorant of where the lines are, where social appropriateness is concerned, if only now and then,” the trickster offered. “Also, if you may recall, you still need me, unless Pepper should decide she would prefer Extremis stabilized rather than cured. I finished up work on that just this morning and sent it to you for review. It’s safe, and you wouldn’t require any frost giant close at hand to prevent combustion after applying it. You shouldn’t need more than a few days to put that together, if you really make an effort and allow me to oversee.”

Tony rocked back on his heels, arms folded, his first knuckle pressed against his lips. He stayed quiet for a while before finally just asking, “Why?”

“I think I’ve already left you enough clues there. If you haven’t gotten it yet, some genius you are,” Loki riposted.

“You’re still not looking at me, or trying not to,” Pepper murmured.

The trickster’s eyes fell shut. “Accurate assessment.”

“I’m mad at you,” she said lightly.

“You’re fairly justified.”

“Loki?”

He opened his eyes and met her stare evenly, though he looked uneasy about it.

Pepper reached up and took hold of his jacket’s lapels. She was in taller heels than usual, and didn’t need to pull him down far to kiss his lips briefly, more chaste and deliberate than the first time. Then she pulled away, and said softly, “But you also saved my life, and Tony’s, and I still know you better than a lot of people, I think. I can forgive you, if you stick around enough to prove I’m not a fool for considering it.”

Loki stared at her, and swallowed tightly. “You are, I think, the most gloriously insane, and _dangerously earnest_ being I have met in my entire life, Pepper Potts.”

“You fight with lies. I fight with uncomfortable honesty. I think I’m winning so far, with you,” she shot back lightly.

The trickster looked at Tony sharply, with an expression very open and a bit terrified. “I...”

Tony was still a bit in shock too, and uncomfortable for a variety of reasons. “She’s the boss,” he said softly. Because really, he trusted Pepper more than himself on any given day. And she’d apparently managed to catch Loki without destroying any major landmarks in a 10-mile radius, which was pretty damned impressive. “That said, this is a terrible idea.”

Pepper shot him a mild glare.

Loki looked at her again, still stuck between bemused, impressed, and horrified at the prospect of what he’d gotten himself into. “He has a point. This is-”

“ _You_ thought it was a good idea to let aliens try to invade New York City,” Pepper said lightly, shooting him the same disapproving glare. It was surprisingly harrowing. “I think you should leave that choice to me, sweetie. I’ve got a better track record.”

Loki realized suddenly that of the two humans present, the one currently more dangerous had him by the collar, and he wouldn’t have felt any urge to resist if she were to ask him to kneel. It was a disquieting sort of revelation. “You should be a queen. Of this planet. It would fit.”

“Would it scare off the likes of you a bit?” Tony asked.

“Quite possibly. I’m still trying and failing not to be captivated, it’s very distressing,” the trickster deadpanned.

Pepper smirked a little. “I’ve got you, don’t I?” she asked innocently.

Loki mentally shook himself and seemed to regain his composure. “I’m now more amenable toward you than I’m comfortable with, yes, but I wouldn’t recommend forgetting who and what I am, now that you’re aware.”

“I won’t. And you might do well to remember how close you came to losing it when I was trying to tamp Extremis down,” she said lightly. “Imagine how much I could damage you if I put a real effort into it.”

“Ah, being threatened by a beautiful woman. Now I feel at home.”

“You get threatened a lot, in Asgard?” Tony asked.

“Usually by valkyries.”  
The inventor rolled his eyes. “Uh-huh.”  
“They were the ones who first started calling me Silver-tongue, incidentally,” the god added, a bit more openly lascivious.

Pepper blushed a little, and carefully let go of his collar.

Loki grinned bright and shameless and fierce.

“Tony?”

“Yes, Pep?”

“Stabilize it. Work on the reversal procedure after, but don’t bother giving it your whole focus,” Pepper said, turning to meet his stare unwaveringly. “Not for a while. I... want to give this a try.”

He looked worried only for a moment before he started to grin. “You still know I think you were already perfect without it, right?”

“Yes. And you’re perfect without a suit of armor,” she countered. “That doesn’t mean the alternative isn’t... fun.” She smiled a little slyly.

Tony nodded, solemn and thoughtful. “Okay, boss.”

“Good.” She grabbed Loki’s wrist. “I think you might want to look a bit less yourself while we go check downstairs, if only so Natasha doesn’t stab you.”

Loki nodded a bit numbly and shifted again into the female version of himself.

Tony whistled. “Yeah, I’m remembering reasons it took me so long to work out who you are. You’re good.”

“Now you just get to work out which version you actually prefer,” Lyra taunted, strolling past him.

The inventor opened his mouth to answer, then hesitated, then closed his mouth altogether. Pepper took his hand and squeezed it. “I’m so confused.”

“Me too, a bit,” Pepper admitted. “But I... I think we’re handling this well. Right?”

Tony nodded slowly. “You, uh... you still-”

“I like him. It’s... weird, but I trust him, sort of. He’s been more honest than it seems like, if you think back.”

“I know, it’s freaking me out.”

“But this is... still okay? Mostly?”

Tony nodded. “I see your point, though.”

“Hmm?”

“How weird is it that you’re getting us started questioning monogamy first, instead of me? Seriously, now.”

Pepper laughed at him, and kept giggling as she let him lead her down the stairs, his fingers entwined with hers.

 

~~

 

Natasha met them at the elevator doors, looking unimpressed, annoyed, and a bit worried when she looked Pepper over. "All of you all right?"

"Relatively speaking. By the way, am I still going to need a bullet removed later, or-" Tony started to ask Lyra, who reached into her pocket and held up a handful of slightly bloodied metal. The inventor stood very still, examining it carefully. He cleared his throat. "That... isn't all from a bullet."

"No. I used a general spell for removal of metal particles of a particular maximum size. I wasn't aware, before that, that the electromagnet your arc-reactor powers, had been holding some such pieces suspended."

Tony ran a hand back and forth over the reactor, swallowing thickly. "Oh."

Pepper had gone very pale and quiet, squeezing his hand very tightly.

"You're lucky you didn't remove anything structural from my ribcage," the inventor murmured.

"Anything that resisted the pull too much, as though attached to bone, I left in place," Lyra explained. "I was rushed, a little, but not so much as that, knowing as I did that your body has other foreign materials holding bits of it together."

"Holy shit," Tony muttered, a little shell-shocked.

In the wake of the long, awkward silence that followed, Natasha cleared her throat. "About you, Lyra?"

The trio at the base of the stairs all returned their attention to her.

"What are you?" the spy inquired.

"Not human, as I think you've guessed," Lyra offered.

"We're aware," Tony added, his composure fully recovered and his voice calm, brusquely professional, and only a little threatening.

Natasha's eyebrows raised. "You're sure?"

"Waaay more sure than is comfortable, but consider it taken care of and no longer something I'd support any further S.H.I.E.L.D. prying on," the inventor assured.

For her part, Lyra looked a bit startled, until she sensed Natasha's scrutiny and quickly re-donned her usual masked expression.

"You accept responsibility for her, then?" the spy asked, looking between Pepper and Tony both.

"Oh hell no,” Tony said. “That’s all kind of skeevy in the ownership-of-a-non-human department, jeez.”

“We don't own her, and she doesn't really need our protection in general," Pepper responded. "She's with us, while she wishes to be, and so long as we're equally fine with that idea, there's nothing for S.H.I.E.L.D. to worry about."

"We'll let you know if that changes," Tony added, "but I doubt it will anytime  soonish. Right?" He shot Lyra a curious look.

Lyra stared, looking startled and a little suspicious. “Up to you. You have my word that you spotted most of my lies a few nights ago, and that most of your guesses were very good ones.”

Recalling the dream, Tony tilted his head slightly to one side. “Well. Good.” He nodded thoughtfully and turned back to his favorite assassin. “Yeah, we’re fine.”

Lyra had to turn for a moment, so her face was concealed by Tony’s shoulder, and close her eyes to try and focus and figure out why that, of all things, had made it suddenly hard to breathe. She relaxed a little further when Pepper reached over and ran a hand down her arm: hotter than a normal human touch, and more comforting than anything else in Loki’s life had been in a long time. Lyra managed to pull her composure back together fairly quick, and raised her head again.

Natasha nodded, also looking thoughtful; she hadn’t missed the momentary crack in the otherwise stoic scientist’s demeanor, but hadn’t seen quite enough to decipher it, or be certain whether she’d just seen Pepper comfort her. "Lyra Walker is a false identity then." It was, notably, not even a question.

"Maybe," Tony conceded.

"And whoever you actually are," the spy mused, meeting Lyra's gaze again, "S.H.I.E.L.D. would be inclined to capture you and make a general mess of your life."

"I neither confirm nor deny," the trickster said.

"Any chance you'll inform me later if I were to ask in a non-S.H.I.E.L.D. capacity?"

Pepper and Tony exchanged glances, then looked back at their friend, the spy. "We'll see."

"Ahh, so this little truce is new, but not entirely tentative." Natasha smirked. "You have fun, then. Happy and I can finish up from here. Go home and recover from near-spontaneous-combustion and bullet wounds and loss of anonymity." She nodded to them curtly, turned on her heel and strode away.

The inventor shook himself a bit. "Well, that was fun. Can I see that stuff, please?" He held out a hand, palm upturned.

Lyra let the array of metal pieces pour smoothly from her palm to his.

"Did you, uhm, get all of it?"

"I can check." She placed a hand on his chest just above the reactor and shut her eyes a moment.

Tony squeezed Pepper's hand and tried to relax when she reassuringly squeezed back.

"You have a lot of metal here," she murmured.

"Had to remove some bone."

"That might prove difficult, later, if you still plan to remove this." Her fingers drifted down to tap the top edge of the reactor.

"Yeah. Remove the existing metal, replace it with some more."

The trickster’s expression turned pointedly thoughtful.

It occurred to Tony that the god in front of him could possibly do more than remove a bullet and knit a bit of damaged tissues back together. Possibly much, much more. “Uhm...”

“Should you ask, I may consider. Bone is rather trickier than flesh, but it’s not impossible. It would not be easy, but I could do it.” She tapped the end of his nose, making him frown. “Should you ask, anyway. The rest is already clear.” She started to step away, but stilled when she felt Pepper’s fingers brush her shoulder.

“Join us for drinks?”

Lyra smirked a little. “I believe I’m owed one, yes.” She shot Tony a look.

He gaped slightly. “That was the whole––my god, you’re such an ass.”

The trickster laughed, bright and mocking.

 

~~

 

“What I still don’t get,” Tony said later, after they had returned to the penthouse of his tower after a long drive spent alternately on small-talk and awkward silence because JARVIS had warned them that S.H.I.E.L.D. had bugged it better than usual, “is why you waited to let on until now. You could’ve kept the illusion up longer, or aimed at seduction earlier.” He stepped around the bar, handing Pepper and Loki their fresh-made drinks, his stare lingering particularly on the god of lies, as the inventor raised an eyebrow.

Now wearing his true form again, Loki considered, and stepped closer to Tony, just shy of uncomfortably so. He smiled coolly. “I do desire you, Tony, but I will tell you now, that more than I might might have perhaps enjoyed those alternatives, what I really want is to fuck you, and for that, it’s much more convenient and pleasurable to be myself.” He gestured down at his body with one hand, then sipped his drink.

Tony swallowed tightly, draining half of his drink very quickly. “That’s... ambitious.”

“You’ll enjoy it.”

“I’m questioning that. Openly. I wouldn’t know. How ‘bout you?”

“Infrequently. Few can persuade me.”

“Same here, just on a smaller time-scale, and you the only anomaly so far capable of such a thing without a strap-on, which for the record, no one has managed to deliver on yet even though I once lost a bet that meant it might’ve, but she had to leave town. So, I’ve never exactly... wow, I haven’t started a sentence like that in _years_ ,” he trailed off.

“Except when discussing long-term relationships,” Pepper reminded.

Tony winced. “Thank you, honey.”

She shot him a warning look, but there was affection and amusement in it.

“Your thoughts on this?” Tony asked her, and gestured toward Loki, who smiled in a polite yet predatory manner.

Pepper bit her lower lip in thought. “I’m... I... I won’t say I haven’t thought about it a bit since, uh... seeing your proper form, Loki.” She blushed.

The inventor’s eyes widened a little. “Um.”

She stepped closer. “You could have me at the same time, actually.”

Tony made a slightly incoherent noise, cleared his throat, and tried again. “I’m... what now?”

“I’d be able to feel him fucking you until you come,” Pepper whispered in his ear.

Tony felt the very foreign sensation of his skin reddening from his ears, to his face, and even the back of his neck. He made a small, strangled sound. Then he calmly turned back to Loki and said in cool, even tones: “So. Magic.”

Loki smiled very disconcertingly. “How many times do you want to come in one night, Tony?”

The inventor considered. “How sore am I going to be in the morning? Seriously, don’t sugar-coat this, you’re asking me to-”

“None. I can make sure of that, but in return, I’d like to leave a few visible marks, since I won’t be so sure you’ll be thinking about it all day by _feeling_ it.”

Pepper made a small noise.

Tony shot her a look.

“I’m fine,” she said softly. Her pupils were a bit wide.

“Silver-tongue?” Tony inquired.

“I can show you.”

“Show her first,” the inventor suggested. “I want to watch.”

“Patience, Tony,” the trickster replied, proffering his hand to the lady even so.

Pepper took hold, and let him pull her closer. He touched her face and winked at her. She smirked a little, and took a seat at the bar obviously settling in to watch as Loki moved closer still to Tony, trapping him against the bar with hands on either side of the bar-counter so that his wrists framed the inventor’s hips: effectively caging him in.

“I haven’t even had a taste of _you_ yet,” Loki said, soft and thoughtful.

“Wait a second––Pep?”

“You saw me kiss him,” she reminded lightly.

“No tongue, that I noticed.”  
Loki only smiled.

Tony frowned at him.

“I sort of––it was an accident, and I kissed Lyra once.”

“Briefly,” Loki reassured. “Not intentional, at first.” He then shrugged. “Your turn.”

The inventor tilted his head back a little, thoughtful and appraising, then grabbed at Loki’s shirt and tugged him closer, catching his lips. For a while that was it: warmth and friction, different and pleasant. Then Tony parted his lips and felt one of the god’s hands on his waist, pulling a little, bringing their bodies closer as the aforementioned silver tongue darted into his mouth. After that, was a bit of drowning, barely having time to register the novelty of the body against his being lean and cool and far, far stronger than himself, because that tongue was doing indecent things and Loki’s hands were moving over the rest of him, his waist and back first, then his ass, which he gripped hard and rolled their hips together.

Tony gasped against the trickster’s mouth, feeling himself getting hard, and Loki already half-hard against him and that––that made him want to rip off all of the mad god’s clothing and just _touch_ him, puzzle him out, and find out if the rest of him was as beautiful as this here. When the kiss broke, Tony made noise of disappointment, which turned into something a bit more breathless when one of Loki’s thighs pressed between his and the trickster shifted, bringing a little pressure against where Tony was, yes, now more than interested. His eyes fell open as he struggled to breathe normally.

“Okay,” the inventor said. “You have my attention.” He glanced Pepper’s way.

She was flushed, both hands over her mouth, until she lowered them and said, “I am very, very okay with this,” in low, hungry sort of tone.

Tony then felt Loki’s teeth at his neck and arched into the contact a little even as color rose to his face. He had never––been into this, sort of feeling: like he was letting himself be overpowered, giving over control to someone inclined to really _take_ him. Then Loki’s free hand slid down the front of his pants and he might’ve arched into the contact as the trickster’s hand wrapped around him and gave a few slow, exploratory strokes. _So I’m apparently bisexual when it comes to pretty and insane gods of a chaotic nature,_ he thought hazily. _But oh, fuck, he’s good_.

“You’re not fucking fair,” Tony panted.

“Nor are you,” Loki assured, and then made a low noise of approval as Pepper pressed up against his back, her hands stroking down his chest and sides to rest on his hips. The trickster took hold of one of her wrists and pulled a little, guiding her to sidle in between them, her back to Tony, who gave a low groan as she pressed her hips back against his, re-establishing a little of the heat and pressure he’d lost when Loki’s hand had left him in order to bring her in.

Pepper caught the trickster’s mouth as he pressed closer, and made an appreciative noise to find he tasted a little like Tony, as well as snow and spices like before. Then the inventor slid one hand under her skirt and rubbed at her through her panties, making her gasp.

“Jesus, you’re wet,” Tony murmured in her ear. “You’re really loving this.”

When the kiss broke, Pepper panted, “You too, I think,” again rolling her hips back against his.

The inventor tried and failed to stifle a moan, and bit at the spot near the nape of her neck that he knew she liked, and grinning around it when she whimpered, and turned around in his arms. There was a disorienting moment when the bar counter at his back seemed to vanish, only to be replaced by Loki, who had apparently teleported them both slightly forward and insinuated himself into place.

“That’s really weird,” Tony muttered, then choked a bit and trailed off as Loki’s hand returned to stroking his cock, at a slightly different angle, while he could feel the trickster’s whole body pressed flush against him, hot and hard and close as Pepper kissed him, tasting a little of Loki and a lot of apricots and herself. The kiss was long, and involved, and soothed him to his bones at the same time that he felt as though he were catching on fire in an inherently pleasant and non-threatening way. He may have made a noise when Loki’s taunting hand retreated, but it certainly wasn’t a whimper; although the slightly embarrassing gasp that escaped him when Loki’s retreating hand drew out along his hip and back to delve between his buttocks and stroke his entrance ever so lightly and teasingly, Tony wouldn’t even try to deny.

“Moving this to a bed might prove beneficial,” Loki murmured against his neck.

The inventor nodded, feeling a bit dizzy.

“You are all right so far?” the trickster added, a bit softer.

Tony swallowed tightly. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

“I want to fuck you, but I would prefer you to participate with enthusiasm more so than doubt,” Loki added.

“Then keep doing what you’re doing, because at this rate, I’ll be enthusiastic about all sorts of things.”

The god of mischief grinned as befit his title, and settled long arms around both of them. “Good.” Then he teleported them, as non-violently as he could.

Pepper still wound up a bit disoriented when they arrived, and Tony shuddered as though something about the experience reminded him unpleasantly of the void, but Pepper’s lips sought his for distraction: her own and his. It was quite effective, and neither of them quite noticed the appraising, openly scheming way Loki looked around their bedroom, until he murmured in Tony’s ear, “Turn, please.”

Breaking their kiss as Loki gently urged them both to turn until Pepper was once more in the middle, and Tony faced the large vanity Loki had been leaning back against. Tony––getting the gist after a few pointed glances the trickster shot him, then the mirror, then Pepper, and then back to Tony––turned Pepper to face Loki as the god of mischief knelt, his hands moving up her legs from her ankles to her thighs and making her shiver.

“Ohmygod,” she moaned breathily, blushing from her face, down her neck, further still below the neckline of her dress, which she could feel Tony unbuttoning the sides of, just before he pulled it over her head in one smooth movement, and tossed it aside onto the chair beside the vanity.

Loki’s eyes glittered with mischief and something darker, hungrier and more predatory, and he let them both see the way his tongue darted across his lower lip at the sight: Pepper’s flushed skin, dusted with freckles, and the delicate lines and curves of her form, all uncovered save for a scrap of pearl-white lace and silk about her hips.

“Not fair that you’re both still so dressed,” Pepper panted.

“You’re a vision in white lace, my dear,” the trickster said.

“And you look good in that shirt, but I want to see under it,” she countered.

Smirking wider, Loki removed one hand from her skin long enough to raise it in a flourishing gesture as he muttered a spell to vanish his shirt and trousers, as well as most of Tony’s clothing (earning a slightly startled noise, followed by a scoff of, “show-off” from the inventor) so that both men were down to their boxers. “Better?”

Pepper nodded enthusiastically, eyes doing a fair bit of wandering.

Tony looked his share, as well, and found that even without being felt up by the trickster’s clever hands as an excuse, he still found Loki captivating: that damnably attractive face, of course; but also the long and lean lines of his body; the elegant strength visible at his wrists and hands, collarbones and snake-hips, which should have looked delicate for their fineness, but not on this one––not on the trickster, god of mischief, who moved with all the casual power of a well-fed leopard and never dropped his composure for long, even shortly after the Hulk had shattered his spine.

Now those clever hands moved up to Pepper’s hips, and that damnably clever mouth moved slowly, reverently up her inner thigh on one side, then down the other, ignoring the heat between them and making Pepper whimper and slump back against the inventor, who gently took hold of her wrists and tugged them up. She let him steer them, setting her hands behind his head where they could tangle in his hair. Then he let her go, let his hands skim down along her arms to her breasts, caressing them, seeing her arch into the contact in the mirror while also feeling it, and seeing Loki cause her panties to vanish. _Magic is the best cheat ever_ , he thought, and looked away from the mirror, down her body, peering over her shoulder, to see Loki’s mouth begin to explore her sex.

Pepper gasped, her whole body going string-taught. Tony nipped at her neck while his hands wandered: distracting, accentuating the shocks that shook up through her as Loki’s mouth proved worthy of descriptions like “clever” and “silver-tongued” and “impossibly good” along with others that escaped her, along with most other coherent thought. The trickster teased, at first, with long flicks of his tongue at her entrance, probing and tasting with apparent savor, then moving up, unhurried, to her clit, which he grazed on one side, then the other, before closing his lips around it and sucking, while his fingers pushed into her slow enough to make her emit a low moan of open desperation and roll her hips down a little, seeking more. She could feel his lips curve with amusement, pressure growing more gentle, just before he swirled his tongue across her clit enough to make her shudder, and didn’t let up on that as he increased suction and his fingers began sliding in and out of her with more purpose.

Tony supposed he should have felt a bit left out, but he was far too distracted by the views, both down along Pepper’s body and in the mirror: Loki’s ministrations and the way his eyes rarely closed all the way, still peering up at both of them from under long dark lashes, and Pepper shuddering and breathless and flushed, her eyelids fluttering as she struggled to keep her head up so she could see both Tony’s hands moving on her, and Loki’s mouth at work down lower. The feel of Pepper against him as she started to shiver, getting close and with knees going weak such that soon only Tony held her upright, along with those visuals, already had the inventor struggling a little to keep it together. Then he felt one of the trickster’s cool, long-fingered hands, the one not busy finger-fucking Pepper, brush the back of his calf and trail up from there: along the side of his knee and thigh, pausing to caress thoughtfully along the line where derrière and thigh met. Loki stared up at him then, eyes bright, at the same time that his tongue and fingers performed another little trick that was enough to send Pepper over the edge with a cry, her fingers clutching almost painfully tight at Tony’s hair as her thighs trembled and she sagged a little against him. Tony gripped her hip hard with one hand, and wrapped an arm about her chest, holding her tight against him.

“Again, you think?” he asked the god, in a breathless half-growl.

“Oh god,” Pepper breathed.

“Good?” Tony said more quietly, right in her ear.

“Holy fuck yeah, he- _oh shit, Loki!_ ” she panted, then broke off abruptly, squirming a little as her brow furrowed and she jerked back into Tony as Loki abruptly recommenced use of his mouth on her now almost painfully sensitive clit. She whimpered, now gripping hard enough to bruise at Tony’s thighs behind her own.

“Too much?” the inventor asked.

“Don’t. Stop,” she hissed, through gritted teeth, and then uttered a syllable which no known human language had any alphabetic representation for. She came again quickly, gasping and shaking and whimpering a bit when Loki’s mouth released her and his hands retreated so that he could rise to his feet. She stared at him only a bit hazily. “You’re really fucking good,” she panted.

“And you’re delicious,” he returned, with a shameless grin, wiping his thumb across his mouth and then cleaning it with one slow, thorough lick. “Now I’d like to take Tony apart for your viewing pleasure, if you like.”

The inventor felt a flood of adrenaline hit, just enough to clear his head past all the rest of the distracting biochemistry clouding his judgement and making him––really not find anything unappealing about that idea at all. He swallowed thickly, holding Loki’s stare as the trickster––very obviously hard in his boxers––leaned back with his hands on the edge of the vanity. His expression was expectant, patient, and thoughtful.

Pepper let her head fall back to rest on one of Tony’s shoulders, momentarily distracting him. “Give me a minute so I can feel my legs again, holy shit.”

“Damn,” Tony muttered. “Better than the time in Brunei?”

She half-laughed. “You’ll have to find out yourself.”

The inventor admired both the persuasiveness, and interpersonal diplomacy, of that response. “I was under the impression other plans were in place.”

“Well,” Loki mused, “I do want you ready for me.”

Tony’s mouth ran dry as the trickster moved toward them again, gently picking up Pepper as though she weighed no more than a feather, and moving toward the bed to place her at the head of it. The inventor watched briefly, then followed, lingering at the foot of the bed, letting Loki stalk toward him two steps, until they stood very close.

Loki traced the line of his jaw with two fingers, tilting his head up slightly. They both smirked a little as they heard Pepper settling in and getting into a comfortable position to watch them. Tony reached out first, hands settling briefly on either side of Loki’s waist, light but sure, as though appraising a new metal alloy or feeling along the surface of his armor to take in the changes that a battle had wreaked on the texture. He leaned a little closer, not hesitant, but sharp-eyed and curious, as one hand moved up Loki’s side, fingers tracing the lines of muscle and bone, over ribcage, briefly down the upper arm to take in the feel of those whipcord muscles now pliant and relaxed, then back up, along collarbone, to settle on the side of Loki’s neck, thumb pressed up against the corner of his jaw lightly as the rest of his fingers curled around to rest just above the nape. Loki watched him all the while, leaning into the touch a little at the last, his eyes dark and still wary, still too sharp and shrewd by far. So Tony pulled him in and didn’t resist in the least when the trickster curled an arm about his waist and leaned down the short distance to catch his mouth. He tasted very intensely of Pepper this time, for obvious reasons: her heat and musk lingering on that devilish tongue, cut through only a little by spices and something cleaner and sharper: apples and glaciers.

The inventor pushed in closer first, bolder now, though he inhaled sharply at the feel of Loki’s erection sliding against his, both of them separated only by two very thin layers of fabric. A stubbornly rational part of his brain noted that the god of mischief was well-hung, and that Loki intended to put that to use, on Tony’s own person. A shiver ran through him, but sensing his own near-hesitation, the inventor did what he always did: reached out, rather than backing down, and slid his hand under the waistband of Loki’s boxers, taking hold of the god’s cock no differently than he might his own, except the slight difference in angle, and experimentally applied a slow, teasing stroke. He was rewarded by the sound of a surprised, sharp intake of breath from Loki, whose hips jerked a bit, seeking more contact. Tony obliged, stroking again, quickly working out the conversion of what he himself liked, for use on Loki at this angle. He was always a quick learner, after all. He lost focus a bit when the trickster once again made use of a strategically placed leg between his own and deepened the kiss: one hand in Tony’s hair at the base of his skull, the other sliding down from his waist to grip his ass in a way that was hard and possessive and full of _intent_ enough to make the inventor moan a little involuntarily and roll his hips against the pressure and friction Loki offered. It started to fall apart not long after that, but Tony was too occupied to notice until the god pushed him back onto the bed, following close so their mouths never parted, and pinned him there bodily. Tony’s hands scrambled for purchase on the bed for a second before he realized he wasn’t going anywhere further and they grabbed at Loki and–– _damn_.

Tony hadn’t ever quite understood the appeal of a male behind compared to the curves of a lady’s, but Loki’s ass was round without being feminine, and really firm and when he shifted his hips the feel of the muscles there was just glorious and distracting. As a result of this discovery, the inventor may have emitted a slightly strangled, desperate groan, which turned into a sound of dismay when the trickster grabbed his wrists and pinned them above his head. The kiss broke, leaving them both panting.

“Hey, I was enjoying that,” Tony complained half-heartedly, with a pointed glance in the direction of Loki’s buttocks. “You’ve got a great ass.”

“For a man new at this, you certainly have no hesitation.”

“I know what I like, and while I’m not sure I like men in general, I definitely like you,” the inventor responded, low and curious. Then he grinned toothily. “Not that I think this suggests anything good about my mental health, but damn you’re good.”

Chuckling softly in response, Loki lowered his head to bite again at Tony’s neck, dragging his teeth not-quite-painfully over the inventor’s skin: enough to redden, enough to bruise when he nipped again and sucked.

Tony let his head fall back, and noticed Pepper watching very intently.

“This was my best idea ever,” she breathed.

Both the inventor and the god of lies, caught off-guard, laughed helplessly. They would both later insist it was not giggling, and Pepper would rightly (and perhaps a bit affectionately) call them both liars.

She joined them for a bit, laughing too, but trailed off as the two men both recovered a few shreds of something vaguely resembling composure, and cut them off with words in crisp, professionally expectant tones: “Do get him ready for us soon, though, Loki. I want back in on this.”

Tony may have made a choking noise.

Loki only grinned. “I live to serve, Miss Potts,” he purred, vanishing their remaining scraps of clothing with a snap of his fingers and sliding down Tony’s body smoothly. “Lubricant recommended, by the by.”

Tony’s eyes widened a bit, almost comically, until Loki sucked the head of his cock into his mouth, at which point the inventor’s head fell back and he swore in tones of awe, reverence, and frustration––the latter only because he was being played like a violin by the both of them, and they all knew it, himself particularly. Even worse: he couldn’t bring himself to care. Especially with the tongue of the god of lies doing things to his cock that nearly made his eyes roll back in his head. He forced himself to sit up a bit further and raise his head again to get a good look, and the resulting visual made his balls tighten as he struggled not to come then and there: Loki Lie-smith, painfully handsome and slightly flushed, eyes dark and hungry and never looking away from his own, whose devilishly fine lips were stretched around his length, took him to the base with his cheeks hollowed in with suction, all while that tongue––oh god, that tongue.

Any possible doubts Tony might or might not have had, thinking perhaps Loki was in this more for Pepper than himself, promptly evaporated, because that hungry, dark look was all for him, all cracked and full of sharp edges Tony just wanted to press against––see how they fit against his own jagged-edged self. “S-stop, don’t-want-to-come-til-I-have-you––” Tony babbled, rapid-fire and intent, halting with a hiss when Loki chose to listen, and that glorious mouth retreated.

“Until you have me what?” the trickster prompted.

“I’m curious,” the inventor panted, grinning crookedly, brokenly.

Loki crawled back up his body, looming over him a little, and extended a hand toward Pepper, palm-up.

She placed a condom (foil removed) and a bottle of lubricant in his hand.

Tony swallowed hard, eyes falling shut when Loki lowered his head and kissed lightly at the already-darkening mark on the side of the inventor’s neck.

“If you’re at all uncertain, I suggest you inform me now,” the trickster murmured, low and heated, as he set the lube beside Tony’s head and reached down, donning the condom fairly causally.

“I’m vaguely curious where an old Norse god gets modern sexual courtesy instructions concerning condoms, but uncertain? No, I don’t think so,” Tony responded, smirking wide and challenging at the way Loki’s expression darkened even as his lips curved in genuine amusement. It wasn’t a threatening dark: just lust and hunger and heat. All good things, just at the moment, and Tony wanted to see more of that from this particular liar. Picking up the bottle of lube, Tony flicked it open and held it out, offering.

Loki rested his weight on his left arm, and placed three fingers of his right hand under the bottle, letting the inventor apply the slightly cool, slick liquid to them. He slid his digits together to coat them, not lowering them until Tony snapped the bottle shut again. He paused to hold himself up as Pepper sidled closer, unable to stay a mere spectator. Loki smirked, settling back on his heels as Tony looked up at her, smirked a bit, and let her pull him up enough for her to settle in behind him, sitting him up a bit, her  body cradling his, without restricting Loki’s access. After a pointed look from the trickster, however, they did move to the edge of the bed to make certain angles less awkward. Accordingly, Loki rose to his feet and stood in front of them.

“Emotional support?” Tony asked his love.

“I want to feel what he’s doing to you,” she responded.

The inventor groaned softly, “Best. Girlfriend. Ever.” He then enjoyed the view a bit as Loki moved slower, hips settled in between his legs again, but paused to kiss Pepper over Tony’s shoulder, because he could, and she smiled a little and let him, sighing contently at the slick-slide of their tongues before he pulled back, his more dry hand settling under Tony’s left thigh, adjusting their angle, while a lubricated finger teased at his entrance. The inventor sucked in a breath. He’d been curious and adventurous enough to try a few things in that region, nothing quite on par with getting really fucked, but fingers and on a few memorable occasions, some small toys specifically designed for doing improbable but surprisingly brilliant things to his prostate, had been there before; however, there was a great deal of difference between the fingers of such daring one-night stands, and those of Loki Lie-smith, he soon discovered.

By the time Loki had graduated him from a single one, to two, Tony was back to panting and intermittently swearing, this time in multiple languages. Pepper breathed encouragement in his ear, sounding thrillingly breathless just from watching Loki’s fingers do things to an oft-neglected bundle of nerves inside him that threatened to drive him out of his mind.

“S-seriously not f-fair, fuck, how’ve I fucking missed this,” Tony stammered, between faint gasps. He winced a bit as Loki added a third finger, but felt the pain dissipate almost entirely after the trickster whispered a spell against his neck. “How much sex-related magic have you got?”

“My family inspired a number of viking myths. What do you think?”

“Holy fuck,” the inventor half-laughed, more than a little breathlessly.

“Pepper?” Loki inquired lightly.

“Yes?”  
He paused in his ministrations, ignoring the inventor’s half-inchoate protest, and lifted Tony’s left leg by the back of the knee, changing the angle. “Hold this, please?”

She reached over, obliging.

“Up and back just a bit,” Loki directed. “Yes, that’s excellent.”

Tony rolled his hips in a slightly embarrassing fashion, when Loki chose that moment to reapply his fingers, less gently, making sure they rubbed hard just where the friction would really count. “Fuckin’ hell, Loki, just––” His head fell back and a series of tremors rolled up his spine, only to halt abruptly when the trickster’s hand left him all too soon. “Fucking teasing bastard!”

“I believe he’s ready for you, Pepper,” Loki mused, voice rougher.

Pepper let go of the back of Tony’s knee. “Mmm. _Good_.”

“You’re both trying to kill me, I swear to science,” the inventor groaned. He then hissed a little at the prickle of heat along his skin at another magic-laced touch from Loki, but he suddenly felt like he’d be able to actually stand on his feet when the heat dissipated. He vaguely recalled the god’s offer of multiple orgasms, and shuddered not-negatively at the very thought.

“We want you alive, Tony,” Pepper chided. “We’re not done, yet.”

“I love you,” Tony all but whimpered, “and you terrify me.”

She only grinned. “I know. Love you too, but I’ll love you even more right now if you turn around and put this on for me.” She held up another condom.

The sudden realization that he was, indeed, about to be fucked by a god while himself fucking the amazing and impossible Pepper Potts, struck hard, and Tony scrambled to his feet. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.” He then shot Loki a look over his shoulder as Pepper applied his condom. “You too, princess.”

Loki snorted, but settled in behind the mad inventor, gripping his hips firmly as Pepper arched her own forward and took Tony in to the hilt, one arm settling over his shoulder and the trickster’s behind it, her hand lightly gripping the nape of Loki’s neck, nails scratching a little as the trickster arched his neck a bit to press into the caress.

Tony wrapped an arm around Pepper’s waist, breathing her in and savoring her as one of her long legs wrapped around him, her heel pressing into his lower back. He shivered a bit as he felt two of Loki’s fingers, dry and cool, trace along where their skin met: leg, back, and hip, between and along. Then he could feel Loki’s cock against him, slicked and ready, pushing in slow and unhurried even as the trickster’s breath audibly hitched. Tony shifted his hips back slightly, and the burn eased at the change in angle, making him stifle a moan against Pepper’s throat as she pushed herself more flush against him, bringing him deeper as Loki filled him to the hilt, that lean chest now flush against his spine.

With Pepper wrapped around him, the trickster curled behind him, one hand under Pepper’s other thigh tugging her closer and canting her hips just right so that she moaned raggedly the first time Loki pulled back and thrust in again, pushing Tony into her hard and deep...

By that point, Tony was sure of two things: 1) they were clearly trying to kill him, and 2) he couldn’t care less, just now.

He could not, in fact, form coherent words either, reduced to panting breaths with occasional “ah” syllables amongst them. The stretch of Loki filling him burned a little, but he couldn’t wish it gone; the edge of pain gave him some focus, helping him keep from coming embarrassingly quickly. He couldn’t steer this. Loki could with his strength, as Pepper could with hers too, and with leverage from the bed, but Tony was trapped between them. They caught him up in their movements like a strong oceanic tidal surge, and it was all the inventor could do to keep up, and move with each surge, and so he focused on that. Tony rolled with them, shifting his hips back with each thrust from Loki, then forward enough to keep the trickster from retreating far, while also drawing better and better noises from Pepper.

Belatedly, he realized some of those noises were actually his own, combining with hers. He resolved not to acknowledge it, and since Loki started to pick up the pace and Pepper was coming around him, letting his mind go a blissful blank was easy, just then. The ragged moan from Loki as the inventor’s body tightened, getting close, was pretty damn gorgeous, sending eager little shudders through Tony’s body.

“Come on, Tony,” Pepper whispered, her voice rough and shaky as she trembled a little with after-shocks and slid her hand between them to bring her clit just a little more friction. “You’re so close, baby, come for me, I want to feel you come like this.”

“Do it, Tony,” Loki hissed, and got a hand in his hair, then, tugging his head back just enough that he could bite hard at the already-established bruise he’d left.

Tony promptly fell apart with a broken cry, coming so hard he saw stars and his legs gave out. Luckily, he was pinned between his unnaturally strong girlfriend––who seemed to be coming again, to judge by the noises she made in her throat and the way her hips rolled hard against him––and a Norse god still thrusting into him, but with less finesse, now, muttering curses against the side of his neck. He wasn’t in danger of falling to the ground, especially when Loki came shortly after, with a shuddering gasp and a bit of hoarse swearing, and leaned forward with his weight on both hands, which in turn rested on the bed.

They stayed still for over a minute, still connected, catching their breaths.

“I’ll hold you to the promise of multiple orgasms when I’m more certain it won’t kill me,” Tony said, his voice still uneven. He shuddered as Loki, still half hard, pressed a little further into him, briefly, before slowly pulling out. “Fffuck, that was good, though.”

“I look forward to it,” the trickster purred.

Tony grinned as Pepper giggled and extricated herself a bit. He then blinked a bit at a slightly tingly sensation around some key places. Pepper had a similarly bemused expression on her face and they both turned to look at Loki in unison.

“Yes, there’s a spell for post-coital cleanup. I’m a very practical mage.”

Pepper giggled helplessly, burying her face in Tony’s shoulder.

Loki moved to step back, seeming a little surprised when the inventor reached out and pulled him back in with a hand on the nape of Loki’s neck.

“It’s a king-sized bed. Share it?” Tony offered.

The god arched an eyebrow.

“I’ll suck you off in the morning,” the inventor offered.

Loki shook his head a bit, but smiled despite himself. “We have an accord.” His smile widened a bit when Tony pulled him in closer still, for a kiss that confiscated the smile but left all the mirth behind it more than intact.

“C’mon.”

Sensing that he was making a perilous mistake, but feeling to content and tired and well-shagged to mind, Loki followed them to bed, and fell asleep tangled up with what he suspected must be the maddest pair of mortals who had ever lived; although they were certainly mad in the best possible ways.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony knows a lot about selective omission and might be getting the hang of this unravelling-the-trickster business, a bit at a time. Pepper gives a shit about Loki's well-being, and offers him an ultimatum as a result.
> 
> A long-distance call from Asgard also might just lead to the ultimate discovery of how to get decent less-cryptic-than-usual exposition out of the god of lies. Malekith is a tricky motherfucker, Loki's plans are in motion a little earlier than anticipated, and ten times more complicated than they may seem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a bit longer than anticipated, but to be fair, its word count dwarfs those before it a bit, due to the last long scene.
> 
> No _actual_ spoilers for Thor 2: The Dark World. I really have no idea what is going on with that film and trying to guess just gives me a headache. All the bits with Malekith are of my own devising rather than anything from the films or the original canon.

Tony woke up first. In fact, he woke up far too early, but that was fine, really. He was used to operating on less than five hours of sleep most of the time.

As he’d hoped, the white-noise field Pepper used to help her stay asleep when she was particularly stressed (basically every day since Killian’s death so far, not that Tony was counting weights to add to his personal guilt-collection or anything) was just enough background-cover to prevent either of the other two people in his bed from being woken by him as he lifted his head enough to figure out why exactly he seemed to be experiencing an odd temperature contrast in the region of his right arm.

The solution was simple enough: One, Pepper was almost feverishly warm where her back was against his chest, but somehow they’d moved closer to Loki during the night and she’d curled up against his side, clinging comfortably, which brought the arm Tony had loosely about her waist to change position a bit, his hand and wrist on Loki’s stomach, which felt not-uncomfortably cold.

The inventor considered that the next time he got particularly bruised after a bit of action in the armor, he could settle in between them and get all the benefits of an ice pack and a heating pad respectively.

Then he recalled that he hadn’t yet replaced any of the suits destroyed after Killian’s death and felt a little sad. Coffee, he decided, was clearly what he needed right now; he considered that it meant leaving Pepper to her own devices with Loki, but recalled that the trickster had exerted a lot of energy last night and possibly in the days before (he’d been rethinking Lyra’s apparent exhaustion and weariness lately, in a new light; hell, he was rethinking Lyra altogether in a new, suspiciously green-tinted light) and that Pepper had suggested something about being more than capable of damaging him if she actually put an effort into it.

Safe enough, considering he’d already somehow wound up with a threesome with the trickster god in question, which his freshly-woken mind was beginning to wonder about the rationality of. It was Pepper-approved, which made it automatically more sensible than it was as an idea of Tony’s alone, but Pepper and Loki... there was something a bit odd, there, that he couldn’t entirely work out.

Coffee, then.

He gingerly disentangled himself and slid out of the bed, quiet as possible, and stepped out of the room.

 

~~

 

Twenty minutes after waking, brushing his teeth, and draining two cups of very fine Italian coffee, Tony was almost awake.

“JARVIS, you’ve been keeping some things about Lyra off my radar, haven’t you?”

“At Miss Potts’ request, sir, yes. There have been a few things.”

Briefly, the inventor pondered the consequences of requesting that his AI raise all restrictions and start showing him any and all particularly interesting conversations held in Pepper’s office recently, especially all concerning Dr. Lyra Walker. He set his empty coffee cup aside and rubbed at his eyes. He was only in the living room, anyway, and still in nothing but his boxers, and getting caught watching private conversational footage on the couch in just his boxers would just be embarrassing, even by his own particularly twisted shame-standards.

“Leave them locked, for now,” he sighed, and pulled out a StarkPad from where he’d absently tucked it amongst the couch-cushions yesterday morning. “Bring up Lyra Walker’s interview footage, though, on projection. Both parts.”

“Of course, sir.”

Watching the projector-borne playback on the wall, speeding through a few places, Tony found himself trying not to laugh, because really, Loki was clearly a son of a bitch. “Call yourself Sky-walker and bring up Asatru in the interview, you cheeky motherfucker.”

He also noted a few other things. _Dissertation about Erskeine’s formula nearly got Steve killed, likely petty revenge, got her noticed by AIM, though. Accelerated Extremis development, but what else? Loki at AIM: now_ that _raises some new and terrifying questions._ He clicked his tongue, watching signs in Lyra’s expression (which he’d since gotten to know a bit better) when she mentioned Siberia in the interview. _Hydra, and the lost project: totally a setup. They’re doing his work for him, whatever they’re doing. How does it relate to Extremis, though?_ He tapped a command or two on the StarkPad in his lap, rewinding a little.

Lyra Walker’s voice, quiet enough not to wake even paranoid tricksters just in the next room: “ _The mechanisms which cause the heat-effects of Extremis are far older than they may seem. Older than any known records of persons with active mutations such as the X-men: much, much older. That said, there are a number of humans with traces of those older things in their genes, particularly some with heritage from certain regions of Scandinavia, and to a slightly lesser extent, the rest of Northern Europe, along with Siberia and Mongolia..._ ” Idly, Tony remembered something Pepper had mentioned Killian saying, about a part of the human brain that he thought meant that it was made to be upgraded. Killian’s name suggested his heritage was probably Irish but the Irish’d had plenty of run-ins with vikings––lots of monasteries and nunneries all raided back in the day, and even before that: trade and raids and other cultural exchanges. Tony wondered, briefly, about red hair, and Pepper Potts, and fire. Then Lyra’s voice again interrupted his thoughts: “ _My mother’s interpretation was a bit more_ religious _than I was at all comfortable with, for the record_.”

He stopped the playback and stared. “You. Complete. Bastard.” He ran a hand through his hair and started to grin despite himself. “Brilliant, magnificent bastard.” With a few gestures, the playback fell away, replaced simply by Google.

Tony typed in: _Norse mythology fire_

Second result down: _Norse mythology fire giants_

“Frost-giant, you say? Well, how conveniently opposing,” the inventor muttered, adding _giants_ to the search-string. “ _Surtur_ seems popular, let’s see: In **Norse mythology** , Surtr (Old Norse "black" or "the swarthy one") is a jötunn. **....** thought of as being a mighty **giant** who ruled the powers of (volcanic) **fire** of the ...” Tony’s finger hovered over the link. “I’m already not liking the sound of this.” He hummed. “In any case, it’s Wikipedia. Not exactly trustworthy, given that last I checked, the myths seemed to suggest Loki was Odin’s adopted brother instead of Thor’s, in a less identity-crisis-inspiring way.” He clicked it anyway. A moment later, he gave a slightly exasperated sigh. “It’s all about the apocalypse with these people.” He was fairly sure Loki wasn’t trying to bring about Ragnarök here, not so soon anyway, and his godly vengeful ire had changed focus at some point from Asgard and possibly earth a bit, to someone far more distant, and the remains of the Chitauri along with them. So maybe there was something old and dangerous under Siberia. Maybe it was a fire-giant, and maybe it was just something related to one. No telling, really.

Tony had no doubt, though, that whatever it was, it was big and nasty and horrifying and probably capable of wreaking untold destruction.

 _Cooling. Loki knew exactly how to cool down the heat-reaction of Extremis,_ the inventor mused. _Cool and contain and..._

Something clicked. Tony tilted his head back a bit, closing his web browser. He leaned back heavily into the couch, thinking. Thinking about clashing fire and ice, and what Loki could possibly want with a half-sedated fire-giant.

It didn’t sound very good. None of it did. Disaster, surely, would follow, but Lyra hadn’t involved Stark Industries in it yet. Not visibly. And why?

His fingers drifted across the arc-reactor and he turned his attention to it thoughtfully, only a little distracted: his other three trains of thought still running in the background. After a moment of staring, he gripped the edges and turned it until it clicked and came up, slightly loose, in his fingers. He removed it gingerly and examined it for a moment, braced for the faint, customary little tearing pains that usually came with it: the suspended shrapnel suddenly recalling the existence of gravity and other forces and moving slightly, just slightly: enough to ache and make it hard to breathe for a moment. This time, the moment didn’t come. He kept breathing, slow and easy, undisturbed by inconvenient jagged little shards of metal.

Now he just had a big, metal-sealed hole in his chest to put a battery in.

Not very glamorous, that.

Gently replacing the arc reactor, Tony recalled the exhaustion on Lyra’s face a few nights ago, before she’d taken that brief little dose of time off. She’d looked ragged, then, drained almost like she’d suffered actual blood loss. _Two places at once. No spell-casting upkeep, so how do you maintain it?_ Tony mused. _Dreams, maybe. But you came back from that vacation looking so much better, so much more whole._

“I think you went home,” Tony murmured. “I think you needed more than dreams.”

“Sir, a Dr. Reed Richards is calling you about the Avengers.”

The inventor’s eyebrows raised. He’d known Richards, before the superhero business. He’d been Tony’s idol, for a while, when he was in his late teens (IE: after his father’s death) and Richards had been in his early twenties already coming up with the most astonishing theories about phenomena in space. Then the Fantastic Four happened, and Tony had been concerned, but distracted by... fairly meaningless things, in retrospect: a war or two, and all the weapons to keep them going for years. Since Afghanistan, he hadn’t thought of the other scientist much, but since the invasion over New York City... well, it had occurred to him that if the Fantastic Four had been a little more in the loop, they might’ve been in the right corner of the globe to help do something. He raised his tablet and tapped a few commands, answering the call.

Richards’ face, older than he recalled from their last meeting, but still younger than he quite should for a man with almost a full decade on Tony Stark, who had been doing even more insane things over the past few years–– _Must be from the radiation_ ––appeared on the screen. “Hey, Reed. Long time no see.”

“How you enabled video features when I’d disabled them, I’m disconcerted by,” Reed offered, shaking his head a little. “It’s been a long time, Stark.”

“Call me Tony, man, you’ve known me since I was at MIT. And you’ve _survived_ knowing me that long, too, so clearly you’ve earned the right”

“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything I never want to know the details of,” Reed sighed, glancing below Tony’s face pointedly.

 _Right. No shirt._ The younger man grinned shamelessly. “Nah, I woke up before them. You’re presuming a lot, though, calling in before it’s even ten.”

“I’d been informed that some of your more... questionable recreational activities have become a little less frequent. I suspect I may be wrong.”

“Oh, still questionable, just in different ways,” Tony assured. “JARVIS said you were calling about the Avengers, though? Cut to the chase, before anyone else wakes up and I have to explain who I’m video-conferencing with while so scantily clad.” He fluttered his eyelashes for good measure.

Reed, predictably, made a face. It was a great face: exasperation, mild disapproval, a bit of worry, and above all a determination to move on and try to pretend that whatever had caused him to make the face had **not** just happened. “I got a rather strange pair of visitors in my lab recently. It took me a few days, because S.H.I.E.LD. security protocols have gotten so much more aggressive than when I last sought any information from them...” He raised an eyebrow pointedly.

Tony coughed. “Well. We keep them on their toes.”

“But,” the older man continued, “I did find a few disconcerting things.”

“And they reminded you of your visitors?”

“One of them. The second was harmless: Spider-man, who clearly stepped in at perhaps the wrong time, but he seemed unhurt for it, so perhaps he got lucky. The other didn’t give his name, but he was the one providing transport.” He offered a half-amused, half-exasperated smile. “And cargo.”

“Cargo?”

“Just over a dozen automatons courtesy of Victor von Doom, the usual,” Reed said, shrugging. “Except they hadn’t been after us. We didn’t know anything about them.”

“But he brought you an ambush?”

“Freshly defeated, and fully incapacitated, albeit with a time limit.”

Tony blinked a bit. “ _Temporarily_ incapacitated?”

“With ice.”

The inventor tried not to show a sudden flash of interest. He really did.

“Sound familiar?” Reed asked, his smile turning just a bit knowing.

Apparently, those attempts had failed. “A bit, yeah. Spidey say anything about the visitor? Maybe not a name but a title?”

“He would be the sort to have a title. I gathered that by his sudden entrance, lounging back on his defeated enemies like their bodies were an icy throne. Reminded me a bit of you, actually, but that was more his exit than anything else.” Reed leaned forward a bit, rubbing his chin. “Spider-man mentioned something that struck a chord here, with things I’d read about some unusual astrophysics from a promising young scientist in New Mexico, which halted abruptly for a while after a bit of S.H.I.E.L.D. interference, along with all correspondence from Dr. Foster. I followed up on it, until I heard from her again, some days later. She never quite explained what had occurred.”

Tony started to grin.

Reed smiled back, with less smugness, but only a bit. “He apparently called himself an old god. Spider-man also mentioned that he might, if overheard correctly, have offered Doom a deal.”

The inventor frowned thoughtfully. “Did Doom accept?”

“I doubt I would have had as much ice-damaged armor to clean up afterwards if he had,” Reed answered. “Spider-man also confirmed that their exchange didn’t exactly take the usual shape of a successful diplomatic agreement being reached.” He raised an eyebrow again. “What can you tell me about him, Tony?”

“I only know a few gods, Reed, and none of them were actually icy, though I did hear later that one of them was supposedly a frost-giant, but he looked pretty human and didn’t use any ice where we could see it,” the younger man explained. “How’d this guy look?”

Reed made a thoughtful noise. “Not exactly human. Blue skin with slightly paler markings––I couldn’t discern whether they were scars of some sort, or more natural––and red eyes. The red encompassed both irises and sclera. That aside, his features were human enough in shape, like the rest of him. He was seated, but it was clear he was tall, slightly lanky, with long black hair.”

Tony kept his composure much better this time, being more prepared for it. He shrugged and quirked his mouth a bit to one side thoughtfully. “Both the gods I got to meet were pretty pale. One was a shape-shifter, but hey-”

“Was he also the frost giant?”

“Well, yeah, but he’s in prison, in Asgard.”

“You’re certain?”

“If he’d gotten out, we’d have heard from Thor by now,” Tony assured. “They won’t keep anything less than a really sharp eye on him, these days, given he’s nearly destroyed two planets just within the past few years, with earth being one of them.”

“Fair enough,” Reed sighed. “I suppose I might have to check alternate pantheons or something.”

“You know Doc Strange?” Tony asked lightly.

“I have heard of him, vaguely.” He sounded disapproving.

“Arthur C. Clarke, Reed. Magic is science we don’t get quite yet, and that is what dealing with gods makes you have to learn quick. I can introduce you to him over lunch sometime this week. He mentioned he was having trouble with some terrestrial elder-gods, whatever that means.”

“Spider-man did mention that the monstrous beings we got reports of throughout last week converged around the god as their target,” Reed mused. “They were... I’ve seen nothing like them, nor anything quite like the remains of one collar I retrieved from one of the Doom-bots.”

Tony snorted. “Doom-bots?” he repeated, amused.

“His name is ‘Doom’, Tony, get over the nomenclature, please.”

“I won’t,” the younger man sighed. “I got one of those collars, actually. Ran into one of those things on my way to lunch with some friends.”

“Which friends?” Reed asked, eyes sharp and bright.

“Well, Doc Strange, for one. I think one of the constructs got distracted by him. They belong to someone called ‘Nightmare’-”

“And you laugh at _Doom-bots_ when-”

“-who is an old enemy Strange has gone up against a couple of dozen times.”

“No one else?”

“Pepper. Me. Pepper’s friend.”

Reed fixed him with a frightfully paternal disapproving stare. “Tony.”

“Look, I was suspicious of the friend too, at first, but _she_ isn’t at all magical. I had Strange there to confirm that, and I think of all people you and I actually know of, he’s pretty much the most qualified at detecting things like magic or... godliness, I guess.”

“Do you trust him? Or this woman?”

“That woman saved my life last night, Reed. And Pepper’s. There was an assassination attempt on me, at the gallery opening we were at, and her quick thinking saved a lot of people. She risked herself, and kept Pepper from losing control of her own recently-acquired questionable powers, even. I’d say we’re fine, where she’s concerned.”

“What’s her name?”

“Lyra. Happy now?”

Reed sighed. “Tony, if it was midday when you were attacked by that nightmare-thing, that suggests it was the first attack that day. The others didn’t start until sunset.”

“Strange is an occult-entity _magnet_ , Reed. Come on, if you’ve read anything about him, I’m betting the info was S.H.I.E.L.D.’s, and you know they send him out when they want something dangerous _led away_ from innocent people. He attracts them, because of his ludicrous title and ostentatious jewelry or whatever.”

“You’d be the expert on ostentatiousness.”

Choosing to ignore that pot-shot, Tony asked, “Where did the other attacks happen that night, anyway?”

“Spider-man stated the finale, as it were, occurred in Central Park, not long after dark. Reports we got before that were all from within a half-mile of the park.”

“I found Lyra leaving dinner with an old friend, on the opposite side of town, right about that time, Reed,” Tony said. Only a half-lie. “No monsters nearby, nothing like that. She was a bit ill, but it didn’t exactly look mystical.”

The older inventor raised both hands, palms-forward. “I’m sorry.”

“You of all people, Reed. Don’t fit some of the facts to suit theories instead of a few theories to suit all of the facts.”

Reed had the decency to wince and look sheepish. “You’re quite right.”

“Still want to meet Strange and brainstorm about the Central Park showdown?”

“Yes, I’d like that.”

“I’ll call him, see about arranging something. What days have you got free? JARVIS? Calendar projection. Oh, before I forget, you mentioned something about your blue icy god’s exit?”

“He delivered a small defeated battalion along with Spider-man, who made a few excuses for them both quite reflexively, including a claim that Doom had been the attacker and our mysterious blue stranger merely defending himself, then declared the other monsters had been sent away and Spider-man would do any further explaining, then just smiled and vanished. He waved at me as he did, and I though of you.”

Tony couldn’t repress a fit of sniggering at that. “That’s hilarious.”

“Mark tomorrow on your calendar, please.”

“Sure, sure,” the younger inventor sighed.

 

~~

 

Five minutes later, Tony called up Steven Strange.

“Yes, Tony?”

“You lied to me,” he said flatly.

A long pause. “About?”

“Lyra. You worked something out.”

“Only a little. She seemed...” The sorcerer considered his words carefully. “I would never say that woman seemed ‘harmless’ or entirely ‘well-intentioned’ either, but she was no harm to you, that I could detect.”

“The nightmare-thing that was after you––she said something before the crash, but I couldn’t make it out,” Tony offered.

“She requested that I shield you both, and myself. As she dropped her attention-diverting wards,” Strange sighed.

The inventor made a thoughtful noise. “Huh. Then she shouted something, but it was really muffled, sounded wrong.”

“I was getting rid of the silencing wards I had raised in order to converse with her frankly without alarming either of you.”

“She got you good. You didn’t get her out of that car, did you?”

“No. She did it herself. How––how did she reveal herself to you?”

“Saving my life, is all,” Tony admitted.

“Then you’re welcome.”

The inventor snorted. “For?”

“If I had informed you then that I suspected her to be a powerful mage, not human, hiding from gods only know what, would you have trusted her enough that she could have been there to save you?”

Tony considered for a long moment. Perhaps too long.

“I was giving her a chance. You did not see how she looked when she thought you both in danger.”

 _Ignoring that. You don’t get to put those ideas in my head, not now especially_ , Tony thought, but conceded, “Okay! Okay. Fine. Fuck you, though, seriously. This does not a trusting relationship of sharing information make.”

“Neither does this pretense at the start of our conversation. If you were actually angry with me, my desk would doubtlessly be in splinters and I’d be badly burned, at the least while you-”

“Very true. Look, I need you to maybe lie about Lyra a little bit just one more time, but I also want you to meet an old, old friend of mine, who might know a little more about Nightmare having loaned out his bloodhounds to Doom.”

“Doom made that collar?”

“Yep.”

“And there was more than one of those things?”

“Yeah, they got torn apart in Central Park later that night, mysteriously. Lyra, incidentally, was on the other side of town with one of the most gorgeous blonde women I have _ever_ seen on her arm.”

“Is that relevant?”

“Reed Richards thought so. Well, abut Lyra, not the blonde, but seriously: _goddamn_. Anyway, I told Reed that it was more likely the scout-hound that came into town looking for someone else stumbled across you, and its master noticed and decided to send it after you while you were unawares and a little vulnerable, because let’s face it: Nightmare hates you a _lot_.”

“That would make sense, I suppose,” Strange mused. “But you doubt?”

“I’m uncomfortable with how he fixated on Lyra. I think it’s because the one they were after, in Central Park, sort of called himself a god.”

“A god?” Strange sounded unimpressed.

“A little old god who took apart Doom’s robotic drones by selective application of ice to their internal components, forcing all the important little pieces apart,” Tony offered, with a little dramatic flair. “He apparently tried to offer Doom a deal, even.”

“Like a devil. Great,” Strange sighed. “I’ll need a look at the battle-ground.”

“Free for lunch sometime this week?”

“I don’t know, Tony. Last time I accepted that offer, I got verbally abused by a mage in hiding I still can’t figure out, and was involved in a violent car accident, then attacked by a wandering corporeal nightmare-beast.”

“The last bit, the beast and by extension the car accident it caused? Totally your fault, man. You’re lucky I’m inviting you again, after that kind of thing. So rude, bringing your personal vendettas crashing into my beautiful, beautiful Bentley.”

Strange laughed, a bit reluctantly. “Tomorrow.”

“Good, that’s what Reed said. We can meet at the park. If he asks, Lyra is non-magical, because the last thing I need is her getting paranoid about Reed researching her a bit too intently. Even I can barely keep up with her regular levels of daily paranoia, and this is me we’re talking about; so, while I need her...” he prompted.

“Mum’s the word?”

“Thank you, Doc. Oh, and one more thing? Just a niggling question I’ve been thinking about where magical theory is concerned.”

An exasperated sigh. “Yes?”

“How do you make a copy of yourself that isn’t a purely magical construct? Say we’re dealing with an otherworldly shapeshifter denser than a human.”

Strange snorted. “What is this about?”

“Something from Siberia, a bit? Maybe? It’s weird. Just answer the question.”

The sorcerer hummed, thoughtful. “A shape-shifter might manage it, particularly if they had enough spare density, as you mention, to make two versions of themselves of the same relative volume, but half the mass. They would have to be incredibly talented to do it, however, and study more anatomy and biology than most. Supporting both halves, keeping them in the shape of two separate and identical bodies, would take power, though.”

“At first, or sort of perpetually?”

“Presuming both halves had something approximating identical minds that were independent, the results could be disastrous. Something like memory-regulation would have to be involved for that, but to support that, both halves would also need the mage’s magic,” Strange mused. “A lot of it, for the half that didn’t get the soul.”

“Souls don’t split?”

A sound of something fragile-sounding cracking from the sorcerer’s end of the line, followed by a low swear and the sound of glass being swept up. “They––can.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

“It’s not something people usually want to discuss, who have ever seen a soul properly,” Strange said. “Anymore so than any surgeon would be comfortable discussing vivisection techniques.”

“Say this mage had a lot of self-resentment going on, possibly an identity crisis a little, something rattling their brains,” Tony postulated.

“That would only increase the risk further, Tony. Identity is at the core of control of one’s magic, if it’s a natural gift, which for a shape-shifter and mage it would necessarily be: wild magic, shape-changing magic limited only by careful control of body and mind alike. Body and mind, in turn, are controlled by will, expectation, and self-aware knowledge. An ‘identity crisis’ would thin that control.”

The inventor ran a hand over his mouth. “But they’d be much more comfortable with causing themselves an utterly ridiculous amount of pain. I’d know; I’ve got a hole in my chest to prove it. People take themselves apart in all sorts of questionable ways when they’re desperate enough, and hate themselves enough. It’s morbidly cathartic, for some of us. Not healthy, never that, but cathartic.”

“Tony, look-”

“Humor me. Could a soul separated in two support itself for long?”

Strange sighed, pacing audibly. “Given two bodies, with copies of the same mind, and a lot of highly volatile magic––” He took a breath sharply. “Overflow. Loss of control over power in the blood and all of the other tissues, there would be an excess that could support a slight warping of reality. Mages too powerful, when they lose control, let slip their hold on their powers and bring about impossible things, usually not very great, but with just enough focus, or––or, well, knowing a mage it would be stubborn pride––the parts of soul could be connected on a level other than magic.”

“Dreams, maybe?” Tony suggested. _Where they can’t detect you. Even Thor said so; you’re good at wandering there, and it’s something different enough from the rest of your magic they can’t take it from you_.

“Perhaps, but it would put a heavy strain on local regions of the astral plane,” Strange said slowly, “absorbing energy, perhaps entire structures of the landscape of shared dreaming if it had to support the bond over any great distance.”

The inventor hummed. “When did you start hearing from psychics in Siberia about the world going up in flames?”

Strange told him.

Tony made a thoughtful noise. _Not long after Thor’s hammer landed in New Mexico. Right about when half of Loki fell off the bi-frost and suddenly had to cope with one hell of a distance. Wiped out a big section of dreaming or astral plane for miles around, replacing the usual dreams with fire, because that’s all you could feel and think about, wasn’t it? Thinking you  that if you couldn’t get it together, you wouldn’t be able to slow or stop whatever is burning under the earth out there from going after people who weren’t the target for whatever petty vengeance this started out as. Then half of you landed somewhere where they hurt you again, made you feel anger and life again because of how much you came to_ hate _them_. Tony rubbed a hand over his face and tried to shake free of such thoughts. They _hurt_ , just to think about. On the other hand: _Fuck yes, I’m brilliant!_

“Tony? Are you all right?”

“I think I know what pissed off Nightmare lately, and why he’s so nervous.”

“You don’t think––Tony, no one is insane enough to attempt the feat you just described. Few beings in existence even have the power and skill necessary.”

“Exactly, and that’s why it’s fucking brilliant,” the inventor whispered.

“Self-induced vivisection of one’s own soul is the _opposite_ of brilliant!”

“Yeah, but there’s a brilliance in realizing that it’s so crazy no one would think of it,” Tony shot back.

“Except, apparently, you: not even a novice at magic, because you can still hardly believe that it even exists!”

“Color me a believer, Doctor Strangelove.” Tony tapped at his arc reactor thoughtfully. “I think I might be really starting to get it.”

“Who, then, Stark? Who would possibly do something like this? Your Lyra?”

“She’s not mine, oh, not even close,” Tony scoffed in airy tones. “No, no no. I’m thinking of gods.”

“Gods?”

“Well, a god. A trickster god with some self-loathing issues. Family problems, you could say. Imagine you live a couple thousand years believing you were one thing, and then find out you’re adopted from another race of people you grew up thinking of as the greatest threat to your home and all you held dear, for years and years, when you were small. Even after a millennium of peace, they’d still be what you imagine when someone says “monster” because they were your boogeymen growing up. And then you find out that you _are_ one. Imagine that for a second, Strange, as Sorcerer Supreme, and tell me about identity crises again.”

“My god,” the magician breathed. “That’s... that’s insane.”

“Tell me it’s impossible. Can you?”

A sharp intake of breath, then a slow exhale. “No, I cannot.”

“I thought as much.”

“Should I attempt to reach Asgard?”

Tony considered. “No. Last time you tried, you wound up in a coma for two weeks, and if there’s possibly a rogue Asgardian mage around, we’re probably better off with you conscious and otherwise functional. Well, as functional as you ever are.”

“They would hardly believe me. Even if I reached them, I don’t think they would believe me.”

“Because you’re a mortal and trust them up in Asgard, they’ve been at this for way longer than you, right?” the inventor crooned. “Enjoying that feeling of justified irritation at your brilliance being put down?”

“I refuse to apologize because I still hardly believe it myself.”

“Even knowing there’s been a frost-giant spotted in Central Park trying to fend off a horde of collared nightmare-beasties? While he’s supposed to still be in prison?”

“You’re joking.”

“He delivered the evidence to Reed Richards, likely because he didn’t have enough energy left to melt them all down, and there’s not a much easier way to conclusively stop one of those things. They self-repair in ways that are just unfair.”

“Or magic-induced.”

“Unfair, like I said.”

Strange gave an amused huff. “You are ridiculous.”

“I’m a genius; I’m allowed.”

“Tony, how did you work out what Loki might have done?”

“He got cocky,” Tony said, light and casual as could be. “Suggested the idea off-handedly, doing a bit of dream-walking. I was paranoid about a lot of things after the invasion and all, so Thor mentioning his little brother’s irrepressible ability to saunter uninvited into the dreams of the unwary got me working on some lucid-dreaming techniques. I was expert in about two weeks; it would’ve taken less time, but I wasn’t actually sleeping much. So, long story short, I knew how to figure out I wasn’t dealing with something from in my own head, when he showed up.”

“Why would he reveal himself to you?”

“I dunno, Doc. Maybe he missed me.”

“The poor soul,” Strange countered dryly.

“He seemed to be testing the waters, seeing if there might be room for deal-making with me. He didn’t exactly say what sort of deal.”

“If half of the stories one hears about him in the right circles are only half-true, it would be enough for me to be wary of him, even without taking into account what he did to New York.”

“Yeah, he’s not a safe bet.” _Neither am I, unless Pepper’s doing the betting. Lucky for him, she is._ “We can work on the rest later, I’ve got to wake Pepper before any alarms go off for the meetings we plan to miss.”

“She won’t protest that? She’s usually the only one who can keep you _on_ any sort of schedule.”

“We have a one very solid ground-rule, and that’s about public attempts made to kill us: we get at least twenty-four hours to ourselves after one. Pepper makes a few calls if needed to make sure we’re clear on it, but other than that: no press, no Stark Industries if it can be helped, and no Iron Man if there’s not an immediate threat, but that usually only applies when it’s clear that more people are still out there trying to kill us. Natasha did clean-up and knew all about these guys, though, so I think we’re safe, there, for once.”

“Pepper agreed to this?”

“It applies more often than you might think when it comes to tactics for her to put off attempts I might make toward potentially unwise and hasty press conferences.”

“Oh, I see. That’s quite brilliant, actually.”

“Yes, and she’s taken. Bye, Stevie, play safe with your pentagrams.”

“Same to you with your––iPhone, is it?”

“... Fuck you, Strange.”

The sorcerer laughed at him and hung up sharply.

 

~~

 

Waking from dreams was usually a fairly jarring experience for Loki on most given days, since the split. He’d gotten used to the dissonance of dreams breaking apart, and suddenly not being certain whether he’d wake up in a prison cell, or freely wandering about the earth. It didn’t matter in the long-term which it was, of course, as he would remember the same thing from the other perspective the next day, but there was almost always that momentary doubt, that uneasy moment–– _I don’t know where I am_ ––that made it that much harder to actually open his eyes.

This problem, it turned out, did have a temporary sort of solution.

Really, he should’ve realized before, not that it would’ve mattered.

He’d slept very heavily, after all of the energy exertion and other volatile events of the previous day, followed by some quite excellent sex. If not for the faint white-noise field JARVIS filled the room with (as he recalled, it apparently helped Pepper sleep) he would have still been alert enough to hear someone else in the bed waking up. Instead, he remained lost to slumber until the white-noise dropped and, a few moments later, Pepper’s voice, slightly louder, but still not-jarring, said, “You know your temperature drops in your sleep?”

Before he even opened his eyes, as the dreams were still fading, Loki knew precisely where he was. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed that. One eye falling open, he intended to glance at her, but found some orange-and-black light-weight obstruction in the way, and had to open his other eye and lift his head slightly to see over it. At some point, Pepper had curled up against his side, using his shoulder as a pillow so she was pressed in close and cuddly against the length of him, and radiating a bit of excess heat. Her hair was tangled a bit with some of his on the pillow. He brushed some of it out of his face to see a little clearer.

“Loki?”

“I am not entirely surprised.”

“Some dream?”

“Memory exchange. Keeps the other half of myself from turning into someone other than me, by keeping us both up to speed, as it were,” Loki murmured.

She sat up, then, the arm not about his waist settling on the pillow beside his head with elbow bent, so she could rest her chin in her hand. “So that’s how you’re here, and also in Asgard all safely locked away, not raising any alarms.”

“Yes.”

“Half of you. So, not just a copy.”

“A copy would be less stable, and more likely to trip any wards designed to detect magical subterfuge.”

“But they didn’t expect you to... split.”

“It was not a... _sane_ sort of decision, but having survived it has worked out for me so far,” Loki murmured.

“Well, lack of sanity, I’m familiar with, _and_ reckless examples of questionable decision-making.” She trailed a finger along one of his cheekbones. “When?”

“Not long after visiting my brother here on earth, and failing to lift Mjolnir, when I did try,” he offered. “I felt––unworthy. And I didn’t like it.”

“So you wanted to get back at them?”

“I wanted to see something beautiful burn: that which would break my family’s heart as they had broken mine, and more than my heart.” He shifted his head back further into the pillow, watching her as she watched his face. “It’s very strange, conversing with you.”

“How so?”

“I can let slip more truths than with most. Something about you.” He shook his head a little, rubbing at his eyes. “I had expected to find Tony Stark distracting. He already was: too brilliant and too broken for me to leave entirely alone. You, however, are every warning I ever ignored or scoffed at where mortals are concerned, and I feel quite as though every teacher who insisted upon the validity of those threats is now laughing at me.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

“I didn’t believe them. It’s difficult, after a certain point, to believe that good exists in this universe. Even my brother, earnest and sincere and well-intentioned, brings havoc with him wherever he goes,” Loki mused. “He is a good and merciful weapon, more so than he is a truly good man. Most heroes are, and as such most heroes have familiar shades of dark in them, regrets usually, or guilt, or need for something like redemption, I suppose. You have so little of that––some, enough to make you clever and realistic, and let you understand the dark without possessing as much of it as someone like myself, but not so much that you hide from happiness, or love, or that you fear complete honesty. No, honesty is something you wield like a blade, instead, and with great precision. I can tell that you have been low before, and seen others around you lower, but there is still so much life in you, and little fear of monsters or the dark.”

“Something tells me you could sweet-talk your way almost anywhere, if you really put an effort into it,” Pepper mused. “Not usually so honestly, though. You don’t expect me to believe you, though, which helps.”

Loki smiled faintly. “It does. I can always reveal truths that are unbelievable.”

“Like when you were Lyra, because you were doing that the whole time: dropping hints of impossible things.” She sat up a bit further, looking down at him, taking in the lines of his chest in the faint streams of daylight where the blinds, according to their timer, had let in a few narrow shafts of it: not enough to overwhelm the room, but enough to cast most of it in a grey-gold glow, calm and quiet. Then she met his gaze again and moved, straddling his waist comfortably, able to feel his narrow hips under her. “Sometime, you’ll have to tell me what happened to you. What really happened.”

The trickster’s expression now was one of surprise, curiosity, and something more wary. She was watching him, calm and calculating, though her smile remained warm and her eyes bright. Warm though it was, her smile possessed an edge of mischief. “Will I?” Loki asked.

“You want to, I think. You’re curious. And you still have just enough distance that you think you could run away if you wanted,” Pepper explained, low and soft. Her hands, settled on his chest, moved out and then up. She pushed extra pillows aside, then ran those fever-warm and clever fingers of hers up his arms, guiding them gently, until she pinned his wrists against the mattress, out on either side of his head. Leaning her weight on them slightly, she tilted her head. “You could.”

Loki swallowed tightly, his eyes very dark. “What are you doing?”

“I’m holding you down where I can see you,” she said lightly, and smirked just a bit when he shifted in her grasp a little. “You don’t like the idea?”

The trickster cleared his throat quietly and shot a pointed glance down their bare bodies, lingering particularly on her hips before he met her eyes again. “Don’t I?”

Pepper turned her head enough to spare a glance over her shoulder, where there was clear evidence to the contrary tenting the sheets now low-slung across him just below those hip-bones. She turned back and smiled winningly at him. “So you’re not in the mood for telling tales, then?”

“I can maintain my words through all sorts of things,” Loki purred. “It would depend upon the tale.”

She nodded, thoughtful. “You have sex-magic to get rid of morning-breath?”

The trickster’s fingers moved a bit, with a dull flicker of green.

Pepper ran her tongue across her teeth and nodded approval. “Thanks, that was starting to get distracting.”

“I’m enjoying being distracted, presently.”

“You’re not, really. Not distracted.” She leaned in a little closer. “You’re waiting to see what I’ll do next, is all.”

“I could always get free.”

Pepper smiled benignly, tightening her hold. “And I could decide not to let you.”

Loki raised an eyebrow and started to move to sit up, only to hiss in acute discomfort as her hands began to heat. “Why are you-”

“Cool down, Loki,” she interrupted, commanding.

The trickster held her stare for a long moment, savoring the burn. “Your strength-”

“Enough to hold down half of you, I think.”

Loki let himself cool, reached out with the cold and sent it creeping over the skin of her hands. His eyes reddened slightly, but not very much.

Pepper increased the heat. “You like the pain, a bit, don’t you?”

“From you? Perhaps.”

She smiled a little. “More than that. You relish it because deep down you think you don’t deserve to exist without suffering.”

Loki’s expression closed off suddenly, turning very stony.

“That won’t hide you from me,” Pepper whispered. “And you know it.” Again, she increased the heat, though her brow furrowed a little with concern as she watched him closely.

Breathing a little more raggedly, Loki gave in and turned cold, so he could reach out and dampen the heat where it touched him. The result was a sound like steam releasing, or metal creaking with sudden temperature-change.

Pepper dropped the heat, still looking at him. “You spent a long time learning to combat heat like this... Siberia. AIM. And me, a bit. You were able to get in some more refined, precision practice, with me.”

Loki smirked a little, just faintly. “Know thy enemy. Extremis is a distant descendant of something very old.”

“I remember that, yeah. I’ve wondered about it.” She leaned in and caught his mouth, briefly, just to taste, smiling when he inhaled sharply at her touch.

 _Heat_. _So much heat_ , Loki thought, only a little dazed. Pepper’s clever mouth, all softness and spiced apricots, now with a hint of something like over-heated metal. He relaxed into it, the contrast with his own cold intensely satisfying. He blinked a bit when she pulled back, pinning him more firmly again.

“You thaw,” she murmured. “That’s... new.”

It took the trickster a long moment to fully realized that he wasn’t cold to the touch any longer, and his skin was once more very pale. “I... did not expect that.”

“Tony mentioned a few things you’d told him. And I read your files.” She smirked a little. “You haven’t done a lot of things yet in that color-scheme, have you?”

“Only some practice. It prevents me draining my magic reserves on this world, which is itself not kind to non-native practitioners,” Loki concurred.

“Do you have any forms you take that aren’t unfairly beautiful, though?”

  
The trickster stared for a moment or two before what she was saying quite clicked. He tried to come up with a response, to laugh it off, but she looked so sincerely curious, like she assumed he already knew, and possibly was doing it on purpose: being... beautiful, apparently. Not only as himself, or Lyra, but in Jotunn war-colors.

“Oh,” she said softly. “You don’t like it?”

“Jotunns are creatures that Asgard tells its children scary stories about, as they grow up, to keep them in their beds after dark,” Loki said softly. “They are monsters. They are _the_ enemies I was taught to be prepared against, all my life.”

“Are they all pretty, too?”

Loki snorted, his fingers twitching a little with the desire to rub at his eyes and half-cover his mildly exasperated expression. “Hardly.”

“I mean, keeping in mind you’re gorgeous and all.”

“I do not find them so. Not even my own reflection, in that form.” He sighed. “Though I have seldom seen any of the others outside of their war-colors, either, I will admit. Their planet only grew colder after the war ended, and there are few places left warm enough for them to causally wear it. There are others in the rest of the nine worlds, who left Jotunnheim before the war and lived peacefully, keeping to themselves, but they are rare. I have not met them, myself, to my knowledge. Only a few other Jotunns without the ice in their veins.”

“Not all of them are icy, then?”

“Not all. Most of those still living are, simply because the icy Jotunn of Nifelheim were the conquerors. That was what began the war.”

Pepper nodded slowly. “So why are there traces of more fiery ones around here on earth for you to find?”

Loki’s eyes widened, just for a moment. “Good guess,” he conceded.

“Why are you studying them? Why are they your enemy?”  
“They aren’t,” Loki assured. “Nor are you, I may hope.”

“This isn’t how I treat my enemies,” Pepper shot back, smiling a little sharply. “So who is your enemy then?”

“I’m after revenge, as you know.”

She nodded.

“There are other power sources other than the tesseract.”

Pepper’s brow furrowed. “What for?”

“Containment and delivery, if I could only learn how all this ice works,” Loki whispered. “And now I have.”

“Delivery of what?”

Loki only smiled.

She frowned at him. “Loki...”

The door slid open, then.

“Have I missed much?” Tony asked lightly, taking in the tableau they made.

Loki shot him a glance. “I could ask the same. You left some while ago. Whatever have you been up to?”

The inventor shrugged. “Oh, y’know, not much. Who is Surtur?”

The trickster’s head fell back, his eyes very wide and alarmed for a moment as he stared at Tony, who closed the door behind him and strode closer to the bed. Loki recovered from the initial shock with a brief head-shake and shot questioning looks between Pepper and her mad inventor both. “Perhaps I _should_ run,” he muttered, quiet enough only Pepper was close enough to make it out.

“Tony,” she said, in curt and professional tones that never failed to send the inventor’s mind careening into the gutter, these days. “I think he’s ready for you.” She shot him a pointed look from under her lashes. “You made him a promise, right?”

Tony stood very still. He’d almost forgotten about that. _I really must’ve been shagged-out to promise the god of lies a blow-job in the morning if he’d stay the night_. Then he stopped and thought about the bedroom-related events of the previous night, and how incredible it had really been. He gave a thoughtful, appreciative hum of agreement. “Yeah. I did, a bit.” He offered a shark-like grin in Loki’s direction. “Got him warmed up?”

Pepper giggled a little. “Yeah, something like that.” Loki was staring at her now with a mixture of bemusement and grudging admiration, even as she turned and met his wide-eyed stare with her own wicked look. “When you’re done, we can run a bit of an endurance test.”

The inventor had to think about that for a moment, before he realized that there was still a bottle of lube at the foot of the bed, and recalled that Pepper’s ideas were often the best ideas. “I love the way you think, sweetie.”

She shot him a coy look as he pulled the sheets out of his way and settled in behind her, and between Loki’s legs.

“You just plan to hold him down?” Tony asked.

“Oh, a little more than that,” she mused.

The inventor grinned a bit as she fixed her attention back to the trickster’s face, and then looked at what he’d gotten himself into and refused to be daunted. He’d been fucked in the ass for the first time last night, and had come hard enough to see stars; so really, sucking a cock for the first time was actually the lower hurdle to leap. Tony curled his hand around the base and settled in low enough to lick across the head for a taste (warm, not-unpleasantly bitter with a distinctly sexual tang, musk and spice) slow and firm, gratified a little when Loki’s hips twitched in response.

Besides, Tony reflected, it wasn’t as though he didn’t know anything about this particular act. He knew it very, very well––albeit from the receiving end; although, that mean that he knew how rough he could probably get away with, and had a fair idea of how to be a maddening tease.

Pepper enjoyed the sight of a very faint pink flush rising along Loki’s cheekbones as his breathing got a little more ragged. “He’s good with his mouth, in my experience,” she said lightly, closer to his face now: enough he could feel the air stir with their intermingling breaths.

“Now I’m––fairly distracted by him, I might be inclined to agree with you,” the trickster managed to say in response, only a little unevenly.

“He’s a quick learner, too. How long until he works out how to get past his gag reflex, you think?” she wondered aloud, after watching him for another minute or two. “It’s just relaxing the relevant muscles, really.”

A thoughtful sound from behind her, at that.

Loki gave a low groan shortly after, his whole body taut as Tony’s mouth took him to the hilt, proving her point. “You’re enjoying this, I see?”

“I like it when you lose track of your masks,” she said lightly. “I didn’t get a good look the last time.”

The trickster’s breaths came in a bit shallower still. “Sex isn’t actually very reliable for that. You can ask my ex-wife.”

“Well, if she was as astute as your old friends...”

Loki’s head fell back and he tried to arch his hips, roll his whole body up and forward, to get more of Tony’s mouth and what it was currently doing to the underside of his cock with a few flicks of tongue. Then his eyelids fluttered back open and he found himself still, a little disconcertingly, pinned by Pepper’s weight, and her unwavering stare. “She wasn’t fooled by the same tactics that they were.”

“What _was_ she fooled by?”

“I was fooled, believing she knew my nature better than she did,” Loki panted. “She was under the impression I’m not cruel.”

Pepper tilted her head, considering. “Oversimplification, I think.”

“Well, your boyfriend is currently sucking my brain out through my cock, so I’m a little short on my usual eloquence,” Loki groaned.

“I think you’ve been on earth too long,” Pepper giggled. “You _are_ still talking, though, and in coherent sentences, even. I’m impressed.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice and it’s saved my life dozens of times.”

Pepper moved his wrists, pinning them above his head with one hand, freeing up the other so she could tangle it in his hair at the base of his skull and tug his head back. Her expression was curious, not enjoying his pain, but working out just what sort of mild pain got the best little reactions. “Look at me.”

His eyes fell open again.

“I trust you,” she said, very quiet.

Loki inhaled sharply, struggling a little. “Don’t.”

“It’s a bit late for that. You got my attention from the start, and you didn’t stop. You saved my life, and Tony’s, and when it comes to those I love and my friends I _am_ selfish, you were right about that.” She ran her hand up through his hair, petting and scritching, before tightening her grip again and applying enough pull to get a low gasp out of him. “I’m selfish enough to not care what you’ve done in the past or how many people you’ve hurt or killed when you were at the brittle edges of your own sanity, or just when you were younger and more stupid.” She kissed him, gentle and all too briefly, and pulled back enough to meet his gaze again. “I give a shit about you, now, whether you like it or not, but if you’re not okay with it or just don’t care, please leave soon before I make the mistake of liking you more than I already do, because you said you don’t want to hurt me, and I do think you meant that.”

The trickster struggled a bit further, as much because Tony had slowed his actions down to listen as because of her words. His masks were all too cracked, no matter which one he reached for. “I don’t know what you want of me.”

“More, in my life, if you’re interested,” Pepper said softly. “It will change you, though. And you know that. You can still run.” She tugged his head up a bit, closer to her own. “There are things we’ll want to know, if you’ll let us.”

Loki panted, staring at her for a few moments until his expression suddenly turned to one of startled, almost-reluctant bliss. “Dammit, Stark!” he groaned, his hips bucking a bit despite himself.

“Tony?” Pepper asked lightly, in dry and mildly disapproving tones.

A quiet, slightly obscene sound followed as he freed up his mouth for response, “I may or may not have made use of the lube.”

“I’m questioning your timing,” she shot back, still focused on the trickster.

“Well... freed up my mouth long enough for me to add that you’re not the only one interested.”

Loki moved his head to one side to peer around Pepper. “I’m also questioning your timing. And your sanity.”

“Reed Richards asked me if I knew anything about ice-wielding gods, by the way,” the inventor responded lightly. “Meeting with him and Strange tomorrow to check out Central Park and prove to him that ‘Lyra’ had nothing to do with it.”

The trickster raised an eyebrow slowly, in a silent question.

“I didn’t exactly rule you out, though, princess,” Tony added, winked, and crooked the two fingers that had caught Loki so off-guard a few moments ago, and began pumping them in and out, not quite slowly, pushing testingly until he hit the anticipated spot that made the god of lies gasp for him. The inventor offered a wide and ferocious grin. “You’ve got a chance. Take it or leave it.” He then lowered his head again.

Loki couldn’t quite contain the ragged moan as the inventor unexpectedly went right back to swallowing him whole quite admirably for a beginner. It wasn’t smooth, or practiced, or the most skillfully applied technique, but it was messy and hot and _Tony Stark_ being mad and brilliant at him, and sucking him off. It took him a while, between Pepper’s unwavering appraisal of his expressions even as her skin grew flushed and her hips ground against him a bit, and the mad inventor applying mouth and hands with such enthusiasm and curiosity, to fully process that Tony had just admitted to lying to someone on Loki’s behalf, even if just enough to divert suspicion from the trickster’s hiding place, albeit not away from the god himself.

Caveats aside, the thought was a slightly astonishing one.

“That’s it,” Pepper murmured. “Now let go.”

Just because his every instinct was inclined to contrariness, he tried to hold out longer, but looking up at her as her teeth dragged across her lower lip and he noticed the hand formerly in his hair had drifted away at some point, so that she could touch herself––he couldn’t hold back. He came with a low, broken cry, as his whole body shuddered.

Tony coughed, slightly. “Swallowing really ain’t easy.”

“I could’ve warned you about that,” Pepper sighed, then let Loki’s wrists go long enough to reach into the drawer of their nightstand and withdraw a couple of condoms. She tore them both open, and handed one back to Tony.

Loki, still in a bit of a post-orgasmic haze, noticed. And then he realized, as Pepper raised her hips and moved with them both when Tony pulled him further down the bed by his thighs, what exactly the devilish mortal woman had meant about endurance earlier. He half-laughed. “By the Norns, you’re both mad.” He did not, however, resist in the least to being re-arranged. He still felt a bit boneless, and sated, as well as amazed and confused in equal amounts, but also still... hungry.

“You like it, though,” Tony taunted right back, arranging Loki’s hips at what he theorized, based on data collected so far, was the optimal angle, at the edge of the bed.

“I’m considering,” the trickster admitted, eyes glittering with mischief. “You may need to impress me a bit further.”

“Well, I’m already feeling special that you haven’t said a word against the idea of me fucking you here,” Tony said, as Pepper put a condom on the god of mischief, who was already hard again, though a bit sensitive, judging by the little shivers he gave at her touch. “Are you sufficiently persuaded, then?”

Loki hissed a bit at that, in conjunction with Pepper straddling him again, this time  with one of her soft hands guiding him into her. His head fell back and he muttered a few reverent curses at the feel of her wet heat sheathing him.

“That wasn’t an answer,” the inventor chided, grinning as Pepper leaned back against his chest. He took a moment to kiss her thoroughly, after which they both shot the trickster expectant looks.

“I’m persuaded,” Loki panted.

“Good,” Tony said, and pushed into him, slow and unhurried. He gripped the trickster’s hips firmly, and smiled a little as Pepper reached back around him and pulled his head down so that her lips were near his ear when she whispered, “Pull us both toward you, and let me lead.”

The inventor shuddered. “Yeah. God, yeah.”

Loki sat up on one elbow, his other hand reaching out, stroking down from Pepper’s side to her hip. He pressed his thumb against her clit with her first rise-and-fall and she whimpered, arching her hips forward a little. Then she had him sheathed to the hilt again, and Tony gripped her other hip, pulling her back a bit as she rose again, and he pulled back, and then letting her control her fall, following her down and forward as he thrust into the trickster again.

“You’re so clever, I love you, Pep,” Tony hissed in her ear. It was such a wicked little reversal of last night, when Loki had been fucking them both, had been the one in control. Now the god of lies was being fucked by both of them and could hardly do more than writhe with them as they did.

She gave a breathless half-laugh that broke off with a cry as Loki’s fingers worked her over.

It didn’t last very long, with them both so worked up, and Loki still sensitive from the first orgasm they’d pulled from him. He was gasping out small, incoherent half-syllables by the time Pepper came, hot and tight and slick around him, Tony letting her go so she could press closer to the trickster, still grinding her hips even as little after-shocks made her whimper softly. She caught Loki’s mouth and kissed him hard, muscles in her lower abdomen tightening around him very deliberately, making him shudder; although he stubbornly held out, lingering on the knife-edge between too much, and not enough.

Admiring the view, Tony felt his balls begin to tighten and forced himself to pick up the pace while still holding himself together. “Come on, Loki,” he panted, with only a little vicious edge to it. “I want to see you like this.”

Pepper pulled back enough to let him, and said low and soft, in her very sweetest almost-innocent tone, “Break for me.”

Loki gripped her hips hard enough to bruise a normal human, pushing into her hard enough she gave a low cry, and Tony swore at the way that muscle-flex affected him, too. “And if I break one of you?” he hissed back, almost too quiet to hear, right in her ear.

“Worse have tried,” Pepper countered, then shuddered a little as his fingers went back to working on her clit. She squirmed over him, breathing a little hard. Then she gasped at the sudden feeling like he was––like he... She pulled back a little and stared, watching his tongue flick across his lower lip and feeling it, a mimic of it, against her sex. She whimpered, and leaned in to kiss him again. The results were––unique.

Because she could still feel his tongue, in both places, and it was glorious.

Tony admired the trickster’s handiwork, feeling the god tightening around him, seeing muscles in those long pale thighs flutter a little. He tugged Loki a bit further down the bed, so that he could grip the god’s ass hard and apply a bit more force, getting that much deeper. He was rewarded with a strangled moan from trickster, followed shortly by the sounds of Pepper and Loki both hitting orgasm very nearly in the same moment, and as a result he barely managed to ride Loki through most of his before losing it himself and having to quickly lean forward over the bed to remain mostly-upright as he shuddered in the wake of his climax.

They spent a long few minute catching their respective breaths, before they could find the energy necessary to pull apart for practical and cleanliness reasons. Loki obligingly provided another anti-stickiness spell thereafter, and they all collapsed on the bed: the trickster lay where he’d been, Pepper rolled off of him to one side, and Tony plopped down between them to lay on his back.

“Wow,” Pepper said, after another minute or so.

“Seconded,” Tony said.

Loki half-smiled. “Call it unanimous, then.”

“Aw, honey, we impress a Norse god, even.”

“That spell, with your tongue, Loki, is unfair,” Pepper sighed.

“The what now?”

Loki rolled slightly so that he settled over the inventor’s body, most of his weight on his forearms out to either side. He smiled toothily. “I can show you.”

Tony made a low noise. “Uhm.”

Pepper made a thoughtful sort of sound.

Both men shot her lightly questioning looks and found her sliding off the bed to stand on her feet. They both paused to take in the sight appreciatively.

She put her hands on her hips and stared them down. “I need to shower and confirm that Stark Industries is following the usual post-assassination-attempt policies and won’t make the mistake of sending anyone in or calling us inconveniently, and reschedule two important meetings.” She smirked a little. “But don’t let that stop you.”

“Wait. Wait. That... is that against a rule somewhere?” Tony asked cautiously.

She leaned down to kiss him, smiling a little against his mouth because Loki had shifted up a bit to oblige her, like a most ungentlemanly gentleman. “I trust you. And I know you trust me.” She shot Loki a look. “Savvy?”

“Thank you,” Loki said, inclining his head a little, in acknowledgement of her first-claim rights, possibly. Or because he was a prince and just did things like that. It was hard to tell. “I promise not to break him. Much.”

She kissed him, too, and turned away to stroll into the master bathroom. “JARVIS? I want footage in high-definition please,” she called to the AI, on her way out.

“Yes, Miss Potts,” JARVIS responded. “Saved to local private server.”

Loki clicked his tongue. “That woman... what is she?”

“Mostly human. Most any and all inhumanity is a recent addition, and didn’t actually affect much other than the fire-breathing, bouts of super-strength, and other fire-related things,” Tony responded. “Also, she’s fucking perfect.”

The trickster nodded thoughtfully.

“Speaking of fire...”

“You lied for me, yes,” Loki interrupted, fixing him with a keen, shrewd yet fascinated look. “Most interesting.”

Tony relaxed under the intent scrutiny, as was his wont. “Yeah. I did. Figure out quite why, yet?”

“You want them looking for clues you could still use,” Loki mused. “So you let them still consider me suspect, while still leaving a place for me to hide. Strange should have worked out more than he has, by now, in that regard.”

“He seemed to think ‘Lyra’ was fairly fond of us. Said you looked at us funny.”

The trickster smiled widely. “Of course.”

Tony blinked a couple of times, having trouble interpreting that response, and particularly how much of it was reminder/threat, and how much was the god of lies being surprisingly honest because he was sure it wouldn’t be believed. “You interest me,” Tony said slowly. “You did from the beginning, but you’re kinda crazy, and made the mistake of killing some people I liked.”

“And would you still have me pay for that?”

Tony considered. “Haven’t you? You’ve done more penance living as a mortal down here than Thor did, even. My only real question is how stable you are with only half your soul keeping you held together right now, and how long you really think you can keep that up?” He sat up a little, admiring just how stony and unreadable the trickster’s expression suddenly was. “I want to know because I think you started to unravel, and had to do something more risky than usual to re-stabilize.”

Loki considered for a long moment. “I have it under control.”

“How much does it hurt?”

Something bleak and pained flickered across Loki’s expression. “I never said it did.”

“Neither did I.” Tony tapped the arc reactor audibly.

The trickster said nothing to that.

“I bet it’s the sort of thing you can ignore. Especially after time to adjust, time to learn to block out awareness of it unless you’re too tired, or stretched too thin. I bet it’s nothing compared to how bad it must’ve gotten when you fell,” Tony said quietly.

Loki flinched, baring his teeth for a moment and moving as though to remove himself, but the inventor reached out and pulled him back down with two arms about his waist and it was too––too unexpected. Curiosity and confusion prevented him struggling, got him trying to read Tony’s face again. “How do you know that?”

“Because you’re not the only one in the habit of only telling people truths you’re sure they won’t believe, because you’re a liar, and the truth is unbelievable.” Tony took a deep breath. “And because you really did worry me, when you looked half-dead with exhaustion that night, you bastard.”

“Worry,” Loki said flatly, disbelief evident. “I could kill you with no effort.”

“I don’t think you will.”

“Why not, then, Tony?” He settled his hand over the inventor’s throat. “Why not?”

Tony got brief flashbacks to being thrown out of a window and swallowed thickly. “Same reason I wouldn’t kill you even if I thought I could.” He half-smirked. “You even said it yourself: killing me would be tragically short-sighted.”

“And you’re certain that wasn’t a lie?”  
“All I know is that I’m about 80-90% certain you want to take me apart as badly as I want to do to you,” Tony bit out, his hands gripping hard at the trickster’s hips. “Because you’re curious, and you know I’m brilliant enough to keep up, and I want that from you; I want to crack you open and see what’s inside.”

Loki exhaled slowly, his index finger tracing a small sigil against the inventor’s neck. Then he ran his tongue across his lower lip.

And Tony made a slightly startled noise, because her felt that somewhere entirely else: an else-place that had recently been more adventurous, but still hadn’t, before that moment, ever felt the flick of someone’s tongue against it. “You––that’s––”

Then the trickster kissed him, slow and deep, and Tony made utterly indecent sounds because he swore he could feel that same slick-slide of tongue, that same pressure and heat, probing into his ass and that was–– _Holy god. Wait... Unholy god? Whatever, oh fuck._ He was desperately hard soon enough, and marveled a bit at his own lack of fatigue. There really were a ridiculous number of benefits to bedding a god.

When Loki broke the kiss and stared down at him, dark and hungry and predatory with an edge of something a bit more dangerous than before, Tony could only stare and pant for a few seconds. “Holy shit, your tongue is the best and most indecent thing, all at once,” he managed, a bit unevenly.

The trickster smirked slow and thoughtful. “Liked that, did you?”

Tony squirmed a little as the trickster’s hands crept down his body and settled on his ass, pulling them flush together, making the inventor gasp a little at the feeling of Loki’s erection pressed alongside his own: hot and velvet. “There are far too many things I like about you,” he groaned.

“I’m noticing, yes, but are you not a hero at heart, Tony Stark?”

“If you still haven’t worked that out, you’re a bit behind,” Tony shot back.

“Your morality is surprisingly tricky to puzzle out,” Loki mused. “You changed yourself and your entire life to escape and try to clear a legacy soaked in innocent blood, and yet here you are writhing under the touch of another killer, and you _like_ me.” He ground their hips together, slow and unhurried. “And I am _not_ repentant.”

The inventor grinned, brittle and cold. “Yeah. A sometimes-genocidal god and the Merchant of Death. You ask me how many regrets I’ve got.”

“More than none?” Loki guessed, his tone light.

“No more than you,” Tony shot back. “And you might be the only one who’d believe that, because you see it, don’t you?”

The trickster’s expression darkened further. “Perhaps I might.” He leaned down and caught the inventor’s mouth again, his hand drifting down between them to wrap around both of their cocks, stroking them together.

Tony rolled his hips in time with the movements, making the occasional embarrassing noises as the tongue trick continued, making him feel even more depraved than usual and... wanting. It took him a few long minutes of their movements getting faster and a little more desperate before it occurred to him that he actually wanted to be fucked again. He broke from the kiss with a shudder at the thought and rasped, “You’re a bad influence, and you should fuck me.”

Loki made a slightly strangled sound, and pushed him a bit further up the bed, grabbing the lube while Tony plucked another condom from the night-stand.

“Put it on me,” the trickster purred in his ear, as two slick fingers pressed into him. Loki made a low, hungry and pleased sound as the inventor obeyed with slightly shaking hands and lay spread out under him again, canting his hips to better appreciate the long fingers opening him up a bit further. “You’re already so relaxed and open for me, Tony.”

“I blame your tongue, seriously, it’s a dangerous thing,” Tony panted. “Get on with it, though, I’m already close and––hnnghfuck!”

“Perhaps I want to feel you come a few times.”

“Not––usually physically a thing I can–– _oh_ -” He cut off as Loki’s length pressed into him, not quite slowly, filling him up slick and hard. Belatedly, he noticed a pillow under his hips that hadn’t been there before (good idea: better angle) then got distracted from that as Loki pulled his legs up so they rested against his shoulders, opening the inventor up further so that when he pulled out tauntingly slow and then slammed back home, he went deeper still and earned a growling cry from the man beneath him. “Holy fuck, do that again.”

“My pleasure,” Loki purred, and obliged again, and again, picking up a rhythm and then steadily accelerating it a little at a time, holding back far less this time: hard and merciless and almost punishing in his pace.

Tony’s hands clung onto the trickster’s hips for dear life as he tried to keep breathing past the overwhelming need to come and his own stubborn need to hold out a little longer. He was swearing, a bit, when he intermittently regained some capability to form semi-coherent syllables, but even those soon trailed away as Loki pulled a new variation of the tongue trick: a muttered spell against the side of Tony’s left knee and a wicked grin as he held the inventor’s gaze and licked along that conveniently close stretch of skin. Tony felt it on the side of his knee, but also up the length of his cock.

“Fucking cheating,” he gasped, but Loki only licked again, then paused to suck and Tony felt it right on the head of his dick.

The inventor came hard, his body shuddering with it, especially as Loki––the complete bastard––just didn’t let up. He kept licking, and pounding into him, even when Tony was so sensitive it made him hiss in pain. “St-stop, I can’t-”

“Ah, my apologies. Here, allow me.” One of Loki’s hands trailed down his leg to his hip and he murmured another spell.

Tony jerked at the warm, prickling tingle it sent over his skin, and sighed in relief as pain faded, except a dull ache where, he realized, he was getting hard again while Loki fucked him. It was exquisitely wrong, a bit like soreness but so wrapped up in pleasure that Tony couldn’t find it in him to complain, in part because he was already panting heavily again as Loki changed their position slightly, curled closer with the inventor’s legs about his waist, and continued hammering into him with almost desperate fury. Tony yanked him down into a kiss that was messy and filthy and biting, and moaned at the way Loki melted into it and matched it.

He would’ve outlasted the god, he was sure, if Loki hadn’t wrapped a hand around his cock and started stroking hard and a bit out of joint with his thrusts, and growled in the inventor’s ear, “I want to break you apart and decipher you, and for you to love it as much as this.”

Understandably, Tony’s plans to last any longer all shattered at that, along with his composure and resistance as he came so hard his vision whited out for long few moments, during which Loki rode him through a couple of jarring aftershocks before coming too, hard and gasping, and slumped a bit, resting his brow against Tony’s chest right above the reactor.

After about a minute of heavy breathing and the both of them slowly coming down from a state of blissed-out mental fog, Loki muttered, “I hate you both.”

Tony considered the note of petulance in that, and opened his eyes to stare down at the top of the trickster’s head. “No you don’t.”

“Which is why I should.”

The inventor chuckled. “So you’re tempted to stick around, then?”

Loki lifted his head. “We should get started in the lab, actually.”

“Whatever is in the water up there in Asgard, I want some. Seriously, how can you even move yet?” Tony groaned.

The trickster snorted. “It’s not the water, so much as the apples.”

Waving a hand as though fanning away the words, Tony said, “Meh, minor details.” Then he made a noise that was definitely _not_ a whimper as Loki pulled out. It left him feeling a bit empty, and the slight sensation of disappointment that came with it, the inventor found himself a little disturbed by. “Wow, you are an education.”

Loki laughed a little, even as he applied a basic healing spell, along with the usual cleanup.

Tony sighed in relief a little as discomfort that he hadn’t noticed until it was gone chose that moment to fade. “So many perks,” he muttered. _Godly perks_. From there, it was a matter of finding the will to move, which still took him a few more minutes.

 

~~

 

Pepper emerged from the shower in just a towel to find Loki sitting on the edge of the bed in nothing but his black slacks from the night before, arguing with a clad-in-just-jeans Tony about something obscure related to bio-mechanics as the inventor rummaged through a drawer of t-shirts. Pepper shook her head at them both, smiling. “Still at it, just switched to verbal-only intercourse?”

Tony made an offended noise. “Intellectual discourse, actually.”

“Well, we could change that if you like,” Loki purred, looking her up and down pointedly, and offering a charming, wickedly bright smile. “You look lovely in white.”

Pepper blushed. “It’s a towel.”

“How do people in Asgard get anything productive done other than having a lot of sex?” Tony muttered.

“We lead very long lives,” the trickster deadpanned, with a casual shrug, “Otherwise I fear we really _wouldn’t_ be able to manage.”

The inventor chuckled a bit, and pulled on a shirt, then tossed another to Loki.

Loki examined it, then looked at Tony and raised an eyebrow.

“Not Amon Amarth*, then?” Tony asked innocently.

The trickster folded it back up neatly and then launched it with unerring precision such that it landed on Tony’s face. “You’re not that funny.”

“I am hilarious, and you know it,” the inventor shot back, after removing the shirt and putting it back in the drawer. He pulled out a plain shirt without potentially offensive decorations and tossed it over instead.

Loki caught it, and pulled it on casually.

Tony kissed Pepper’s temple as she strode over to her own set of drawers in the dresser and said, “We’re off the lab.”

“I’ll see about ordering in food when I’m done reminding everyone to leave us alone the rest of the day,” Pepper responded, mussing his hair a bit as he tugged a bit at her towel, which sadly stayed in place. When he kept trying, she smacked his hand lightly and he pouted. “You have work to do.”

“I do,” he conceded, shuffling his feet like a kid, because he could and because it made Pepper make a tutting noise at him that he found adorable. “C’mon, Loki.” He turned, heading for the door.

The trickster rose and started to follow.

“Loki?” Pepper called.

He paused in the doorway and turned to look at her. “Yes?”  
He back still to him, she let her towel fall to the floor. “Don’t destroy anything too important, please?”

Loki smirked, wide and shameless. “I will take your suggestions into consideration, of course.” Then he closed the door quietly behind him.

 

~~

 

The first half-hour they spent in the lab was mostly Tony perusing the information Loki had sent him, and the design of the serum to stabilize Extremis therein. He took in the whole thing in silence at first, turning a three-dimensional model of the molecular structure of it in the air and running it through a couple of simulations. After thirty-odd minutes of long silences interrupted by commands to his AI and occasional muttered observations, he seemed to recall that Loki was still in the room and said to him, “This is very specific, more than you’d been before, with this.”

Shaken out of his own thoughts, Lok responded, “It won’t be generally applicable. This is designed specifically with Pepper’s DNA in mind.” He stepped up to the projected 3-D display and looked it over critically. “It took me a while to confirm that there are a few traces of inhuman ancestry from over a hundred generations back. It’s diluted, but there are a few sequences that are already naturally inclined to aid her regulation, if they can only be activated. There are differences between the original power those were meant to control, and Extremis, however. It took me some time to work out precisely how different, in her case.”

“You’ve been working on this for a while, then.”

“Roughly half the time I’ve been in your employ, yes,” Loki admitted.

“I still can’t believe I hired you,” Tony muttered.

“Is that regret, Tony?”

“Nah, mild chagrin, maybe, but I’m actually glad.” He turned the model thoughtfully. “Oh, who is Amora, by the way?”

The trickster stiffened. “Pardon?”

“The blonde? The very memorable blonde with green eyes not quite like yours who seemed to know a few things I didn’t, and who apparently gave you ‘news from home’ which, from you, is pretty ominous in retrospect?”

“She is as I said before: a very old friend.”

“How much does she know about what you’ve been up to?”

“Not enough to see my true goal, or know how it is that I’m roaming free without anyone in Asgard seemingly aware of it,” Loki admitted.

“Keeping that close to the chest as you can, aren’t you?”

“As much as possible.”

“I had to ask Strange about it. How it might be possible, just theoretically. I didn’t really mention you by name, at first, but I did eventually,” Tony said, and shot the god a reassuring smile. “He’s pretty convinced that even if he somehow managed to contact Asgard to potentially warn them, they wouldn’t believe him.”

Loki smiled thinly. “There is that advantage, yes.”

“You’re pissed that I worked it out and shared, though.”

“I’m intrigued. You share my secrets, yet not enough to endanger me, though you tread some very fine lines,” the trickster mused. “What do you want of them?”

“Things you won’t tell me, mostly.”

A flicker of something that might’ve been _impressed_ crossed Loki’s expression, and his green eyes looked very sharp. “You are, on occasion, quite good.”

“Oh, I’m always really, really good,” Tony assured. He shivered a little as he sensed Loki step up close behind him. “The simulations here alter a lot of bits of Pepper’s DNA. I’ll need to run those by you. Start with these.” He switched out the large-scale simulation of the serum’s molecular structure with a series of changed gene sequences: before and after displays of each DNA-segment, eleven of them.

“Those are all sections which were altered by the original dosage of Extremis.”

“Yeah, but you’re not changing them fully back to how they were before it, so what exactly are you altering?”

“JARVIS, display the correlating sections of sample genome marked ‘487Muspell’ please,” Loki requested.

“Yes, Dr. Walker.”

Tony experienced a sudden realization and slowly turned to glare at the trickster. “You’re kidding me.”

“Hmm?”

  
“Sky-walker?”

  
“It was one of my names long before the concept of Star Wars was conceived.”

“And you just... left it there... big fuck-off obvious clue?”

“Yes. Immensely obvious. You worked it out so quickly, after all,” Loki drawled.

“You’re a real asshole, sometimes,” Tony sighed, exasperated. Then he looked up as the before-and-after bits of genome were all joined by another set of examples of the same sections of genome from a third, unknown source. “What am I looking at?”

“A very, very, _very_ distant cousin of my blood-kin.”

“Surtur?”

“How _did_ you discover that name?”

“I reviewed footage from your interview and Googled the obvious. Fire-giant, something something end of the world, volcanic everything, big shiny sword, right? He sounded sort of important and dangerous. Is it him or just something else related to him that Hydra is digging for in Siberia?”

Loki shot him a look that was very difficult to read, then smiled a humorless and self-effacing half-smile. “Oh, it’s Surtur, just himself, and that’s more than enough for any world. Odin locked him away in the earth a long time ago, when he was rather more rash and hadn’t quite come to value mortals so highly as he did by the time the power-vacuum left by the loss of Muspellheim’s last great son was filled by an expanding empire of ice from out of Niflheim. They hit Jotunnheim first, full as it was of their cousins. They consumed a planet of forests and stone under miles-thick glaciers, and all the less elementally-powered Jötnar were either spread to other realms, made part of their armies, or wiped out. They had plans along similar lines for the earth.”

Tony nodded slowly. “And what’s _he_ for, to you? Surtur?”

“Initially, I had the rather boring idea of letting him destroy the earth Odin and Thor do love so much, but things rather changed after my fall. I gained new perspective, and new purpose.”

The inventor considered for a long moment, staring at the genes on display before them. “You’re taking the changes made by Extremis, and altering them to be more like genes from a fire-giant.”

“This sample isn’t Surtur’s. No fire Jotunn has altogether stable DNA. They are strange creatures, but like most Jotunn have their war-colors for fighting, and another shape that they live in more often.”

“You turning blue is the frosty equivalent of one of them heating up to the point they almost resemble moving lava?”

“Yes. They are the most powerful Jotunn to deal with, the most difficult to destroy, because they repair their forms as no others do, with their fire: their flesh and bones as malleable as molten rock, when necessary,” Loki mused. “This sample is from a person who is only half-Jotunn of a fiery nature, and much more stable. Her father was a lesser son of Muspellheim, one of the foot-soldiers of the army Surtur had gathered, before Odin locked him away.”

“Half-human?”  
“Yes.”

“I’m not sure I want to know.”

A poignant pause followed.

“Unless there’s a story,” Tony admitted.

Loki chuckled softly, and explained, “Muspellheim has few mages, and does not value them so highly. As a race, most of them have a strong natural resistance to magic built into their constitution: they are not immune to it all, but they cannot be destroyed by it––only contained. This foot-soldier had some gift for magic: enough to teleport himself great distances. Before Surtur fought Odin, he abandoned his responsibilities and traveled the other nine worlds, seeking to learn more. He was not greatly powerful, but he was persistent, and determined to learn. He came to earth, where magic was rare, and lingered to teach some of what he knew to a few with something of the gift, because he’d found that they had no other teachers. He fell in love with one of them, or at least grew enamored enough to produce a child, before war took him.”

“War took him?”

“He was a deserter. Surtur was delivered to earth, and Odin would not let any jötnar remain on the surface, especially any of fire. He sent the soldier home by force, when he would not go willingly, and the poor fool was executed mere days after his arrival there.”

“That’s pretty terrible.”

“His daughter still lives,” Loki said softly. “She is an impressive creature.”

“She’s on earth?”  
“Sometimes. Not often. I was lucky to catch her when she did visit.”

“And she gave you a... ‘DNA sample’ freely?”

Loki appeared amused, and didn’t respond.

“You get a lot of action for a man in solitary confinement.”

“Oh, here and there.”

“How are you going to get Surtur to another galaxy?” Tony asked.

“There are other power-sources other than the tesseract out there. I’ve collected a few, and one or two of them will even add insult to injury,” Loki said lightly.

“But?”

“Hmm?”

“There’s more to it, or you’d have done it by now.”

“Oh, you know,” the trickster waved a hand dismissively. “The last piece of the puzzle being trapped in the Dark World might be a key factor.”

“The what?”

“A place older than Asgard. Their desires are strong enough that they have reached the awareness of someone like-minded, far from them, also inclined to bring a lot of primeval, chaotic darkness to as many worlds as possible. They have common enemies, and shared need for common resources which those same enemies have locked away out of their reach,” Loki explained, briefly.

“They’re in contact?” Tony prompted.

“Oh yes. Their mage, Malekith, is also a dream-walker,” the trickster murmured. “He has been trying to find listening ears of the right sort for so long that he is no longer as good as he once was at making sure that the wrong ears did not also catch his words, and he made the mistake of believing me Thanos’ fool as much as Thanos ever did. I thus know all about their little exchanges.”

“Thanos?”

“The Chitauri belong to him.”

“Ah, that’d do it.” Tony reviewed the other dozen-or-so DNA-rewrites programmed into the serum, and began reviewing the remaining alterations: not changes to DNA itself, but to which genes were and weren’t active, and what systems would be affected. New hologram of a transparent humanoid shape, with different areas highlighted. “JARVIS? Synthesize the prototype. We’ll run further testing once it’s a little more tangible.”

“Growing the appropriate materials and shaping them will take over 24 hours.”

“I figured as much.” He sighed, turned and leaned back against one of his work tables. “So you have a few extremely valuable high-powered artifacts scattered around, a vendetta against someone called Malekith to sort out, and... what exactly do you need from that guy?”

“All of Asgard distracted, with their eyes on my other self,” Loki murmured, looking only a little uneasy. “Knowing Malekith’s impatience, particularly in the wake of my seeming failure to take over the earth, he will make his move against Asgard along with the rest of the dark elves sooner rather than later.”

“You initially thought you’d have some more time before that, but I’m starting to suspect your time is running out, there,” Tony mused. “Was that the news from home?”

“Your perceptiveness is becoming annoying.”  
“Now you know what the rest of the world feels like when they talk to me, almost. Also: I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”

“They let me out,” Loki said.

“What?!” Tony didn’t jump, but he did twitch impressively.

“I’m the only one in Asgard who can get into the Dark World, aside from Odin himself, and _he_ will be required outside of it for the foreseeable future, to keep the darkness at bay as it begins to sicken and corrupt the land and those closest to it,” the trickster explained. “I’m far more disposable.”

“Are you?”

Loki looked at him curiously. “Politically?”

“A bit, but I mean, to Asgard in general? Politics aside, you’re their most powerful mage aside from Odin, right? There’s that, for one. For another, you can go almost anywhere, talk to damn near anyone and persuade them of all sorts of things, and that makes you already better for diplomacy than Thor because diplomacy _requires_ a degree of selective omission and other truth-twisting he doesn’t overall excel at. Really, as far as defending that realm goes, you’re more likely to be capable of doing it almost single-handed, compared to anyone else. And look, you’re doing it now.” With a melodramatic flourish, he gestured toward Loki as though presenting him before a panel of judges. “I think anyone with half a brain in that world has already worked out that you’re fairly invaluable. They just don’t like you, much, but I think you’re an acquired taste.”

“Sorry, but are you certain this is still me we’re discussing?” Loki inquired.

“Nah, most people love me. I’m shiny.”

“Yes, you’re loved by many with little power of their own, who hardly know you, but what of leaders elected and otherwise, all around the world you’ve been protecting? The ones who still refuse to listen to you, who still threaten you, and work to undermine you?” Loki asked. “There are so many. So very, very many.”

“And they can merrily go fuck themselves,” Tony responded lightly. “Yeah, they’re always going to be there, and always in the way, but I don’t need them. They need me, and it scares them when they think about it, so they usually avoid thinking about it, sometimes to the point they convince themselves and others that killing me would be a good idea, but that’s just my life, these days. I don’t care if they like me, or acknowledge that if I really bothered, I could take over this planet in about a day, except that I don’t have to, yet and don’t want that responsibility ever because people are so _needy_. I’ll get enough satisfaction from the looks on their faces if it ever gets the point I _will_ have to, because their heads will explode when I do it, and then just casually give it back and tell ‘em not to scratch the paint.”

“Oh, I do like the way you think,” Loki murmured.

“When did they let you out?”

“Yesterday. I didn’t get the update until I awoke this morning.”

“It _is_ dream-based, then.”

Loki nodded. “Most of the time.”

“How much liquor does it take to get you drunk, do you think?”

“Alcohol of Midgard is very mild by Aesir standards.”

“You’ve only got half your usual density, though.”

“This is true.”

“I propose an experiment.”

“I would recommend waiting on that, sir. Miss Potts has just alerted me that lunch is delivered, and asked me to hasten you both to join her,” JARVIS interrupted.

“Curses, foiled again,” Tony sighed.

Loki laughed at him a little, already walking out of the room.

 

~~

 

Pepper had seemed almost surprised to see Loki when he joined her at the table, and he told her as much.

“Well. Presuming you listened to my earlier request at all, I’m happy to see you, here is all,” she said quietly, smiling a little.

The trickster wasn’t at all confused as to what she meant by that. _I give a shit about you, now, whether you like it or not, but if you’re not okay with it or just don’t care, please leave soon before I make the mistake of liking you more than I already do_... In truth, he had been giving her words serious consideration, along with some of Tony’s. ( _Because you’re curious, and you know I’m brilliant enough to keep up, and I want that from you; I want to crack you open and see what’s inside._ ) The whole idea of lingering here, with these mortals, should have been a number of things: ridiculous, insane, reckless, self-destructive, dangerous and above all a very bad idea. Then again: the same words could be used to describe Loki himself, and all of the aspects of himself he was most fond of, as well as most of the endeavors he’d always gotten the most thrill out of pursuing, throughout the course of his life. Really, there was no choice at all. He offered her a slow, sly little smile. “I’m _curious_ ,” he said simply.

“And you care?” she prodded.

Tony strode in, muttering about gods with longer legs getting ahead of him.

Loki looked at him, then back to Pepper. “Yes,” he said, with obvious discomfort and reluctance, but he said it nevertheless. And it wasn’t actually a lie, either. “Enough to be curious, and inclined to see where this goes.”

“Uh... did I just walk in on awkward relationship delineation time?”

“You’re both apparently dating me now; get over it,” Loki deadpanned.

Pepper almost choked on her drink, sputtering a bit.

Tony gaped for a moment, then slowly shut his mouth and gave it a bit of thought. “Well... okay then. That’s sounds sort of official.”

“You’ve both been considering the idea and immediately dismissing it for over a week now, if I’m not mistaken,” the trickster pointed out.

“During which we thought you were a lady,” Tony countered.

Loki shrugged. “And yet, here we are, and we all three of us seem to have somehow built trust and affection despite efforts to the contrary.”

“So we’re an experiment, to you?” Pepper asked lightly.

“All relationships are, when they’re as young as this,” the god countered. “You like me, you’re interested in me, but we are hardly in love: that goes for both of you, in relation to me.”

“Is that––” Tony coughed. “Are you saying that’s on the table, though? In any sort of foreseeable future? Just asking so we’re all on the same page, here.”

Loki hummed. “Well, anything is possible, but not all things are likely.”

“Yeah, well, I think people are already shocked enough I’ve got one functional romantic relationship, myself included,” Tony mused. “That said, would you call this romantic, exactly?”

“I think we’re fooling ourselves if we don’t admit we’re already toeing that particular fine line,” Pepper cut in. “Otherwise, I don’t think we’d have gotten over the initial trust issues with the fact you, Loki, are a formerly-genocidal maniac with a history of involved mind-games that screw over people who thought they could trust you, and let you into our lives instead of attempting to kill you on the rooftop last night, all things considered.” She took another sip of sparkling water very calmly in the ensuing long, awkward silence, during which Tony looked at her with a poleaxed expression and Loki appeared suddenly stone-still with his usual calm mask cracked a bit by another expression torn between mild panic and wary suspicion.

After almost a full minute of enjoying their discomfort, Pepper added, “You know I’m right. That’s the real reason you’re both tip-toeing around this, even now. You want to lay down the expectations that it’s unlikely and that it’s absurd, and suggest that it’s not worth the risk of even admitting we’re already dangerously fond of each other. If you think about it, we’re already pretty impossible, and we’ve just gotten started. So, Loki, I’m going to tell you now that Tony and I are very much in love, but we’re both interested in you, and in pursuing you.” Her stare was cool, thoughtful, and a little predatory, though her smile was oddly soft in comparison. “I’d be hurt, if you left, and disappointed, because I think we have potential. Your thoughts, Tony?”

The inventor was running a hand over his face, and stopped abruptly, balling his hand into a fist and resting his thumb against his chin. “I think... I can’t argue with that,” he admitted slowly, and met Loki’s gaze with challenge. “Not the hurt, yet, but that’s because I tend to get angry first, which numbs it a bit. I’d be mad, and yeah, a bit put-out that you left the party early.”

Loki’s stare flicked between the two of them. “I’m... on the brink of a war, and can’t promise I’ll survive it,” he said quietly, “but this is very good motivation to return.”

“Or you could bring us with you,” Tony suggested. “We’re good at war.”

Loki’s eyes widened further, and his hands on the arm of his chair gripped the wood a bit tighter as he tried to fully come to terms with that offer. “Pardon?”

“Consider it a selfish sort of time- and effort-investment.” Tony shrugged. “I want you around, all right? I’m not done figuring you out and figuring out why I like you so much when you’re such an asshole, and if I can puzzle that out, I’ll be even more certain than I am now that I can do goddamn anything. Plus, come on, man, my planet is at risk and you expect me of all people to leave it to _you_ to handle? Fuck that.”

“Oh right. It’s your planet. I do keep forgetting,” Loki mused.

“Because you think it’s _yours_?” Pepper asked warily.

“It’s more that I forget you people are from here, given how different I consider you to be, compared to the general populace,” the trickster amended hastily.

“Sure it is,” the redhead sighed. “Because I’m so very inhuman.”

Loki made an amused noise at that. “Even I don’t think that. You could be nothing else but human, Pepper Potts. It’s part of why I find my interest in you quite so mystifying.”

“I’m not entirely sure I should take that as a compliment,” Pepper muttered.

“Then _how_ did you forget this is her planet?” Tony interjected.

“Simple cognitive dissonance. I’m working on it.”

“You are?” The inventor looked a bit startled. “I thought gods kinda took pride in that sort of thing: not knowing the petty ways of us mundane mortals, et cetera.”

“You confuse me with an American tourist,” Loki shot back.

“Oh, come on, that’s not even fair,” Tony sighed.

“Though I cannot speak for other pantheons, those with any inclination to travel for reasons other than warfare, where I come from, does so in deference to the natives of most places we visit. Consider Lyra Walker’s entire academic career. Also, consider my car,” the trickster pointed out.

Pepper sniggered suddenly. “Oh my god, you really drive that. _You_. Drive that.”

“One can’t teleport everywhere without _someone_ noticing.”

“If I may interrupt, sirs and madam, you have an urgent incoming call.”

“Assassination-attempt day,” the inventor responded immediately. “Tell ‘em I said ‘No’ very emphatically.”

“It’s Mr. Odinson.”

There was a short, but ominous silence around the table for a few moment.

“Not a video conference? Please, not a video conference,” Tony sighed.

“It is. Dr. Foster is also on it, along with––well, _you_ , Dr. Walker.”

“Why is JARVIS still calling you that?” Pepper asked.

“Why not?” Loki responded.

Tony considered for a moment. “Bring up one-way visibility via projection on the wall over there, but send the call itself to me.” He picked up Pepper’s StarkPad from the corner of the table and looked surprised and curious when the video feed came in. “Hey, Thor, long time no see. Nice braids: they’re very cute. Hello, Miss Foster, and _what are you doing out of a cage?_ ” Tony greeted, changing his tone from light and friendly to flatly angry once he visibly focused his attention on Loki’s other half.

Pepper and Loki watched the projected display, the trickster looking at himself only briefly before he winced and closed his eyes, shaking his head as though to clear it and not looking that way again. Pepper noticed the trickster’s other half––lurking just over Thor’s shoulder where the thunderer and Dr. Foster stood in very close to the camera––momentarily look a bit pained just before he responded, “Charming to see you again, Mr. Stark. I do remember our last meeting... fondly.”

Tony managed to keep a straight face, but it was a near thing. Because Loki has _just_ explained that his memories updated through dreams, which meant that Loki’s other half had woken up in the morning with memories of some really great sex. _You complete bastard._ “Not that I’m not happy to see you, Princess Prickly, but you’re looking less incarcerated than I expected. Care to explain that, Thor, buddy?”

Quietly, in the background, Pepper asked Loki if he was all right.

He muttered, “dissonance,” quiet as he could; the microphone didn’t pick it up.

“My brother is aiding us, in exchange for some time out of his prison. He is the only one who can take us places the bi-frost will not go,” Thor rumbled. “Please, Tony Stark. We need your help, as well.”

“Have you seen the news yet, Mr. Stark?” Jane asked quickly.

“Haven’t turned on a TV, yet, no. We’ve been––occupied,” Tony said. “I did sort of get shot and almost killed yesterday, and all. It’s a little distracting. JARVIS? Bring up the news will you? Separate display.”

Another projector, aimed at the table, obliged. Loki opened his eyes to stare at it and settled his hands flat on the table on either side of the image, his jaw clenching tight. An object too large for the cameramen on the ground to quite catch in full––vast and dark, rough-edged like the broken-off corner of an age-brittled ebony sculpture––was looming over otherwise idyllic grounds (a state building, or possibly a university, if Tony had to guess) coming closer, scraping along the earth and tearing into it.

“Oh my god,” Pepper gasped.

Loki merely sat back in his chair and brushed his thumb along his lips unconsciously, staring at the image as a news reporter’s voice spoke over it, “ _These images, and others like them, are still coming in from local witnesses to yesterday’s incident. Government officials are still refusing to comment on the alien nature of the structure-_ ”

“Mute,” Tony said sharply. Then he looked back at the video conference screen. “Okay. I’m listening. Now, what the fuck is going on?”

“Well, that happened an hour ago or so, for a start,” Jane said. “I almost missed it, too, actually, given I’m here.” She jerked her head toward Thor.

“All of the nine realms are in danger,” Thor began.

“I got that. The ship: any invading forces in it?” Tony asked. Loki’s description of Malekith and the Dark World hadn’t led him to expect another large-scale invasion of _earth_ being in the cards, and particularly not so soon. A glance at the trickster showed he didn’t look entirely prepared for this either, which was at least a bit heartening, while also making his stomach twist, because if Loki of all people, paragon of paranoia, wasn’t prepared for this, the odds weren’t looking great for anyone else less devious being ready to respond and do anything actually heroic to fix it.

“It vanished, before it even finished landing,” Loki said, from the video feed. “They were a scout vessel, sent to make sure that the next ship, or ships, they send will be less clumsy.”

“Who supplied Malekith with these?” their more local trickster whispered.

“Is someone else there?” Jane asked.

“Maybe. Where’d they get the ships?”

Thor and Jane exchanged hesitant glances. Loki looked grimly amused.

“How did you know-” Thor started.

“If they’re having trouble landing properly, it seems safe to assume the ship isn’t at their usual technological level. They’ve gotten help. Where from?” Tony insisted.

“Their leader, Malekith, has been in contact with a number of questionable sorts with whom I myself have been recently acquainted,” said the Loki over Thor’s shoulder. “Ones from outside. You glimpsed them, yourself, Stark, if you’ll remember: something that shouldn’t have been, pressing against the veil as everything was blown apart.”

Tony felt a chill roll down his spine, but managed to keep breathing slowly and evenly. “I remember. Not Thanos, then?”

Loki looked a bit off-put this time: both of him did.

Tony grinned in return.

“How do you know of him?” Thor demanded.

“Oh, I pick up on things. Does this mean things aren’t looking so good in Thanos’ region of space, if those things are trying to get through?”

“Thanos is as a pet to them, a charm by which to lure Death herself to them. They’re from numerous undying universes that have destroyed Death and learned to infect other universes with themselves, growing and spreading their creed like a cancer,” Loki-the-freed-prisoner explained. “They are the darkness that has existed outside of time before our own universe was born, and they will linger after we die, unless they claim us, which is a far worse fate than death.”

“You’re being unusually forthcoming suddenly,” Jane muttered.

“Where are they?” Pepper asked, upon noticing something fairly strange about the background. There were stars over their heads, but the light that fell on them was warm and golden like daylight. “The sky looks a bit, uh... _unearthly._ ”

“I may have altered Dr. Foster’s machinery,” the trickster on the video said, “in order to send this communication. It has also sent a good deal of information about how to find a certain artifact of some interest to your AI, Stark.”

Tony shot the trickster in the room with him a quick glance.

Earth-dwelling-Loki silently mouthed, _Convenient lie. Go with it._

“I see it has, yeah. If you’re in Asgard right now, I can’t say I have a clue what help you need from me, though, even if I find some artifact for you all,” Tony said flatly. “It’s not like I can reach all of you, there.”

“We need actions taken on earth,” Thor said. “There have been disturbances on earth Heimdall has seen of recent, signs of something under the surface, dreams being consumed to feed it, and prophecies of the world ending in fire.”

“Well, you’ve got a dream-walker with you, don’t you? What’s he seen on the astral plane lately? Does prophecy look different than regular dream-scape? Does it look like a wound, maybe? Or just oddly repetitive like ripples from a stone dropped in a pond, or the shape of a crater’s blast-radius?”

“Whatever do you mean, Mr. Stark?” the more distant Loki asked.

The Loki closer at hand was giving him a wary, yet hungry sort of look that threatened to be very distracting.

Noting that intellectual foreplay with this one could be epic and glorious, Tony very deliberately (albeit with some reluctance) filed that thought away for later and focused again on the game at hand, after quietly clearing his throat. “Never mind. Look, I’m sure if you interrogated him a bit, he might come up with some convincing evidence that recent shit going down on earth isn’t part of this Malekith guy’s machinations-”

“Brother,” Thor growled, low and warning. “He seems to think you know something more than you have let on, of the happenings on earth.”

The trickster at the dining table shot Tony an obscene hand gesture.

“Look, I’ve been working with our local Sorcerer Supreme on our issues, and let’s just say I’m pretty sure they’re––well they might be anti-Malekith in nature, more than anything else. Trust me on this, though, we’ve got a good idea who is behind all that, and he’s much closer to me than you, right now.”

The trickster across the table from him bit his lip to contain a hysterical laugh.

“My father is not so convinced,” Thor insisted. “He believes that Malekith is after something on earth, a powerful artifact. We will be venturing into his domain tonight, in the hopes of reaching some understanding, but we need the Casket of Ancient Winters found as soon as possible. It was lost to us when the bi-frost broke, but we believe it landed on earth.”

The on-camera Loki’s expression was a careful blank, except when he winked.

Tony shot the off-camera Loki a questioning look again.

The trickster offered a mild grimace and ran a hand through his hair, but said nothing.

The inventor muted the microphone on his end. “Seriously, though, have you actually got it?”

“It’s safe.”

“Thaaat’s not as reassuring as I think you wish it were.”

“Tony, we can’t hear you,” Jane said loudly. “Are you there?”

Un-muting quickly, Tony said, “I’ll work on it. What do you need it for?”

“Winter is the season of death,” Thor said gravely. “If anything might be of use against forces which have forgotten Death’s sting, that weapon is it. More than that, however, we fear Malekith might seek to open it and disperse the cold somewhere more helpful to his own plans.”

“I’m still personally inclined toward cleansing fire,” Loki mused. “Think about undying things on fire: constantly rebuilding themselves, only for the recovered flesh to just keep burning.”

“Wow, you’re morbid,” Jane muttered, shooting him an odd look.

The on-camera trickster offered a smile bright as a polished knife-blade and just as potentially warning.

“Do you have any suitable means to wield it, brother?” the thunderer asked.

“Oh, maybe. Get me into the weapon’s vault and-”

“No,” Jane and Thor both said flatly: the former with horror, the latter with exasperation.

“No fun, these people,” the trickster sighed. “Malekith may have the weapons of those who cannot die, but they won’t risk sending in their soldiers until they have a rift formed which would allow them to remain sufficiently connected to their deathless universe that they would be indestructible in ours, or manage to destroy Death here by other machinations before they arrive. We would be better off, facing down Malekith’s darkness as well as the void’s deathless things, with fire.”

Tony muttered, “I’m realizing I should’ve offered the other Amon Amarth** shirt.”

“What was that?” Jane asked.

“Nah, nothin’, don’t worry about it. Side note: Infinity Gems, someone has been trying to track a few down. Heard anything about that?” Tony asked.

“You know more than you are letting on, Tony Stark,” Thor said slowly.

“Maybe, a bit, but face it, I’m you’re only hope. Who else will even listen, let alone have the necessary resources to _do_ something about it, too,” the inventor shot back.

“We have known about the gems for some time,” the thunder god admitted. “Thanos’ gauntlet vanished from the weapons vault several months ago.”

Loki at the dining table leaned his chair back and donned a nonchalant expression that made Tony instantly suspicious.

“How many gems missing? And what are they?” Tony asked.

“You would best ask your other information sources,” Thor retorted. “Find the casket, Tony Stark. It was once the most powerful weapon of a great empire, and powered their world and all its machines of war. It will have left a trail.”

“I’ve already got a few ideas for where to start looking,” the inventor mused. “But when I find it, what then? I can’t exactly just call you.”

“Me, you can,” Jane said. “I’ve got the strongest connection to earth, and Loki’s convinced something has, uh, kick-started a bit of psychic sensitivity in my head.”

“Influence from the Dark World. She may or may not be mildly possessed on an intermittent basis,” Loki said. “The frequency of this encrypted broadcast sent to you is the one you’ll need to reach back out to. I’m sure your AI has already deciphered it by now, I kept things fairly basic.”

“JARVIS?”  
“Affirmative, sir. I would be able to, as it were, call them back.”

“Get your sorcerer or some other magic-user to aid,” Loki continued. “They will be dragged into a psychic link across the astral plane, which is actually what we’ve used to place this call in the first place. I merely fed it into this convenient device.”

“If she’s possessed and decides not to pick up?” Tony inquired.

“It will wake her. I’ve made certain of that,” Loki responded.

“We’ll keep you updated. You look tired though, Loki. Maybe you should nap soon,” Tony suggested, with an only slightly wicked half-smirk. “Refresh your mind a bit.”

“We will await word from you, and warn you if we hear of any more ships sent to earth, should Heimdall spot them,” Thor concluded. “Thank you, Tony Stark.”

“Anytime, blondie. Bring Dr. Foster back home in one piece, yeah?”

“It’s a work in progress,” Jane cut in, before Thor could respond to that. “Bye, Mr. Stark. Good to speak with you again.”

“Goodbye, fare you well, salutations, and-” He winked. “-sweet dreams.”

The screen and the projection both went dark.

Loki rose to his feet and began pacing, muttering under his breath in a language that hadn’t been spoken by anyone on earth for a few hundred years.

“I don’t know where to start with the questions,” Tony sighed.

“Me neither,” Pepper concurred.

“I’ll kill him,” Loki growled.

“Thor?” Pepper asked.

“Malekith, or your other half?” Tony prompted.

“ _Malekith_ ,” Loki snarled, stepping up to the inventor close and threatening. “I know his mind, Stark. If he has made a deal with those _things_ , there are only so many possible temptations that they would offer, and which he might actually accept. His kind are from the dark, from a more primeval sort of existence; the void has a place in some of their myths, some of them once worshipped it, long before the nine realms came to be. They do not fear it; it has always been considered one of their _options_. I’ve been a fool to think he would keep playing Thanos when there are still greater powers so nearby, even more eager to spread foul eldritch whispers than _he_ is.” He turned, raising his hands in a gesture of fed up exasperation.

“Uhm... I know I’m a genius, but I need a little more context,” Tony suggested.

Not missing a beat, Loki rattled off explanation at a rapid pace: “The nine realms are in the branches and roots of Yggdrasil. Malekith’s kin, the dark elves, are only akin to the rest of the races in the nine realms as a tree is akin to the soil it has grown in: same stuff, divided by time, decay, and death. They destroyed their world, killed it long ago, but saved themselves away, sealed away while the storms passed, until another world developed in the same place, part of something far newer. They waited below, in the dark, as Svartálfaheimr grew and prospered, home of Dwarfkind, then emerged with intent to ‘reclaim’ as they saw it. It took Asgard’s aid to banish them, and they hid themselves again, as they did before, cloaking themselves in a shadow just outside the normal passage of time. In fact, they hid in Asgard’s shadow, grew on the underside of it like a distorted mirror we could not touch, for centuries, until they could no longer go unnoticed. They sent Malekith out into the light to speak for them, and Asgard sent myself and Thor into the dark to do likewise, but even I would not call the results peace, for there are indeed lies too great. They have been _waiting_ ––and how did I not see this before? Damn the bastards––because they believe that they can wait out the last and worst of storms, the cancer-verse that presses in from outside seeking to break through the walls between. Malekith thinks he might lay low until the rest of our universe is hollowed out and the cancer moves on, no longer focused upon it. He believes he stands a chance of conning them into cleaning out all the worlds for him and his people––he believes that he can give them Death, while also maintaining her like––” He stopped pacing and gesturing, stopped still as stone, with his eyes very wide. “By the Norns’ orgies, damn him, but that’s actually _clever_! He could prevent them taking Death, but fool the universe temporarily into believing her gone with the same temporal distortion his people have been using all this time to keep mostly out of anyone’s reach! It might actually work, which means I need to _kill_ him all the sooner,” Loki concluded in cold, vicious tones.

Tony and Pepper stared for a long moment as the trickster slowly re-steadied his breathing, his anger cooling just a little, and becoming more calculative.

“That’s the most I’ve ever heard you say in one go,” Pepper said lightly. “What or who is ‘Thanos’ exactly?”

“Death’s lover. He is literally in love with the physical manifestation of the idea. She’s quite pretty when she’s got skin and flesh on, but half the time she’s as skeletal as mortals usually envision their Grim Reaper, except that her robes still fit her figure the same either way, which is honestly a bit disturbing. Most call her Mistress Death, particularly Thanos,” Loki muttered, already starting to pace again.

“So this is how we get you to actually provide exposition? Get someone to piss you off in a sufficiently brilliant manner that you can’t shut up about it?” Tony asked.

“Possibly,” Loki snapped. “I don’t recommend it, however, for frequent use.”

“Aw, but why?” the inventor mock-pouted.

“Because it will make me all the more tempted to rip out your entrails and have them dried and woven into the world’s ugliest basket,” the trickster growled. “And my ability to resist violent impulses is severely hampered on such occasions as this.”

“Noted, but while you’re so cooperative, how about those Infinity Gems?” Pepper prompted. “What are they and why are they missing?”

“They are the remains of one of the first sentient beings to ever exist in our universe. It broke apart into six parts, each one only passively sentient in its own odd way. The six parts manipulate different forces in the universe: Souls, Time, Space, Mind, Power, and Reality itself. The last has either been destroyed, or is the most successfully lost artifact in history, but the others were assigned to guardians after the incident wherein Thanos collected all six together, put them in a gauntlet not very creatively named, and destroyed two-thirds of all life in the universe, among other things, before it was all undone by a few souls who knew Thanos’ mind better than he himself did, and set him against himself before it was too late,” Loki rattled off, almost absent-mindedly, as he paced, rubbing his hands together.

“Which ones are missing?” Tony prompted.

“Nice try,” Loki shot back, not sparing him a glance, too busy staring through his surroundings rather than at them.

“You have them, then?” the inventor tried.

“I can’t use them.”

“Why?” Pepper asked.

Loki paused at her chair and leaned down, meeting her gaze steadily. “Because I know myself, Pepper Potts, and I know very well, of late, the limitations of my ability to resist the temptation of unlimited power in various forms.”

“But you _have_ them?” Tony asked again.

“Two. One I did not want, one I cannot risk touching,” Loki responded, with obvious reluctance.

“Power is one, then?” Pepper suggested.

Loki’s grip on the arm of her chair went white-knuckled for a moment, then released. “Just so.”

“Why do you have them? Unless you’re using the Time and Space ones-”

“The only one I would dare risk touching, especially for actual _use_ , would be Soul, and that’s only because I’ve met it before, and it likes me,” Loki snapped. “I don’t collect them for their powers.”

“You’re getting Thanos’ attention,” Tony murmured. “Because they used to be his, and you bet once he hears they’re being collected, and that his old glove is now officially missing-”

“He’ll be working all the harder to open another portal closer to them, which is what I need him to do,” Loki muttered. “That’s not all I need, however. I need him mad with hate, and I need that hate to be aimed somewhere _productive_. I had known Malekith would be so desperate by now for another world for the ghosts of his people-”

“Ghosts?” Tony asked, at the same tim Pepper exclaimed, “Wait, what?”

“He’s one of the last; their war with the dwarves left them very few in number, in truth, and with none of their venerated elders left: just Malekith the Accursed, for their very last hope. Most of his people are just memories, echoes, and they need _him_ to help them become solid again in the light as well as they are in their carefully-maintained Dark World. The mirroring of Asgard was a warning: he has found more of his kin, more of their souls. It was only a matter of time before their ambition drove them to seek true life again.”

“You said you just needed the Dark World mostly to distract Asgard while you get things done down here,” Tony said slowly. “Will that be enough if he starts attacking earth, too?”

“That’s precisely the problem,” Loki whispered. “I need Malekith kept _away_ from the earth. I had not factored in these ships. I need to distract them. What are the Kree up to, lately?”

“Same thing they do every night, Loki: try to take over the Skrulls,” Tony deadpanned.

“Well, obviously, but I meant in a little more detail,” Loki prompted.

“You don’t trust yourself to distract him?” Pepper offered.

The trickster froze, turning slowly to face her. He took hold of her face reverently and kissed her very firmly on the mouth. “You’re brilliant. I like it,” he said, and vanished abruptly.

Pepper stared at the empty air in front of her, blinked twice, then leaned back in her chair with a sigh, rubbing at her eyes. “My god, I think he’s as crazy as you, but with fucking magic.”

“Crazier. Much crazier,” Tony corrected. “He’s had more centuries to develop his insanity to its full potential.”

“True,” she conceded.

An awkward pause descended.

“I like him, but not––not the way I-”

“I know,” Pepper said softly.

“But you-”

“I already consider him a friend I want to value,” she said. “He’s right: this isn’t love, right now, but we––you and I fell in love so slowly, mostly without even noticing until suddenly we realized just how much needed each other, and it hurt, Tony. I was so... It was terrifying. We didn’t even _notice_ before then just how much love we had, and still have, and we can’t do that again.”

“You think there’s potential we might? I mean... I didn’t think I could really–– _be_ in love, like at all, for a long damn time, Pep. I’m still amazed that I can, that I am, with you.” He strode up to her when she reached for him, and leaned over her so she could touch his face. “You’re impossible and perfect, Pepper Potts. I don’t think I could love anyone else the way I do you.”

She smiled at him, her eyes glassy for a moment until she blinked the tears back a little. “I know. I love you, too, more than I ever believed I could love someone so amazing and annoying and insane as you.”

He laughed a little. “But...”

“Love is more than just us. What we have is amazing, but––there are other shapes love takes, you know?” She let him go, tilting her head a little. “You love pushing, you love chaos and adapting to it and riding the waves of it like a demented surfer, Tony. I can do so much, but there are things you do, chases you go off on, that I can’t follow, you know?”

“You’re enough.”

“I know.” Her smile turned a bit wicked. “When have you ever stopped at ‘enough’ when there was a chance to keep pushing, and see more?”

“Well, there was this one time I destroyed all of this Iron Man armor to show the woman I love that I was letting go of fears and distractions...”

“Tony,” she said quietly. “You won’t lose me. Not to this. You have me, and I’m not letting anyone take you from me, so get that through your frequently-bruised skull right now.”

“You’re sure we won’t––I’m not good at this, I don’t know how real relationships are supposed to work, but this isn’t what any sit-coms ever led me to expect and-”

“Trust me, then,” Pepper whispered.

He stopped, and stared. “You really want to try this, don’t you?”

“You have your adrenaline rushes, I have some of mine. I’m good with people, you know I am. I––I like taking them apart like you do machines, almost, except it’s also a bit like what you must’ve done building JARVIS, but in reverse.”

Finally, Tony started to smile at her, slow and knowing and curious. “Pepper Potts, you sneaky, glorious, and fiendishly clever woman, do you know how much I’m attracted to you right now?”

She blushed a bit and half-heartedly smacked his arm.

“You sure you want to see him that close, though?” he asked. “He’s... well, he’s like a panther, a bit. Really cool-looking and fascinating and intimidating at a safe distance, but at some point when too close up there’s just a lot of teeth and it’s all too clear they evolved to be really good at ripping other animals apart and eating them, and that’s all they really want to do when they aren’t sleeping.”

“You sure you want to get into another war, Tony? There’s an awful lot of jungle full of animals that want nothing more than to rip you apart and eat you, there,” she countered. “Except you like the thrill, and you can’t resist the danger.”

He clicked his tongue. “Damn. No wonder you’ve got me whipped.”

“You like it,” she countered, smiling a bit more slyly even as she blushed.

“I love it.” He took her hand in one of his, lifting it to kiss her knuckles. Then he let her go, and reached for the tablet, checking a few things. “Huh. He did send info, actually, but not about the casket. Looks like an aerial map with... oh, shit, that’s a bigger chunk of Siberia than I expected.”

Loki reappeared then coughing smoke and looking a bit more battered than he had a few moments before. “My brother, at least, is sufficiently paranoid for this endeavor to stand some chance of success.” He sat down heavily in the nearest chair. “That really stung.”

“If you were struck by lightning, why is your hair not...” Pepper gestured, her fingers around her head tracing shapes that wouldn’t have been out of place as the silhouette of an improbably punk haircut.

“He’s got magic and an excess of pride,” Tony responded.

“You’re not wrong,” Loki mused and shot him a faint grin. “Jealous?”

“Eh, not overmuch. I don’t pay that much attention to my hair.”

“Liar,” Pepper said flatly.

The inventor tried to shush her, but got intimidated by the glare she sent him and gave up before he was halfway through the attempt, such that it fell apart a bit embarrassingly. He coughed in a vain attempt to cover for it. “So. You tapped yourself for updates?” Tony guessed, in an effort to distract Pepper, as much as to keep getting information while Loki was apparently caught up in a bout of unusually forthcoming verbosity.

“Yes,” the trickster admitted.

“So, wait,” Pepper said. “Getting this straight, you’ve been driving Nightmare crazy here on earth by messing with dreams somehow, there’s something you want under the ground in Siberia that I’m presuming involves ‘cleansing fire’ of some sort, and Doom noticed and presumably got angry that great games were afoot that he wasn’t in charge of, but you’ve also been waiting to get after Malekith who wants to destroy Asgard and has also been making deals with creatures out of H.P. Lovecraft?”

“Also, Malekith and Thanos were on friendly terms, willing to work out deals where conquest of planets around here are concerned,” Tony added helpfully.

“Yes, and still, in the end this is mostly all to get back at Thanos?” Pepper concluded.

“Destroy Thanos, set aflame the darkness trying to press its way in from between universes with primordial heat that might have once burned all of Yggdrasil to ash, and incidentally ruin all of Malekith’s plans in the process: that is my goal,” Loki confirmed, beginning to grin a little more widely. “Apparently, Malekith’s been in contact with Thanos all this while, too, so I’ve just re-discovered.” He tapped his temple. “Oh, I’ve been busier than I expected; I’m so used to the rest of me being bored and boring, it’s hard to think again in terms of being free in two places, but I digress. Thanos is what the ships are really all about: he’s promised Thanos a whole new fleet, and a new portal, presumably so that Asgard will have their forces divided, given their renewed interests in protecting the Earth, and how paranoid Odin always is about any interest in the Infinity Gems, or about Thanos making any return to this galactic region. One of those ships in the fleet will have the portal for Thanos to step through as the ships all converge, and that ship will be mine.”

“You sound disconcertingly pleased by this,” Pepper said.

“The ships are manned by ghosts, ideas, memories of people,” Loki mused. “They will destroy mortals and gain more solidity as they go, theoretically.” He giggled a little, and wiped at the corner of his eye. “They’re souls. Nothing but _souls_.”

“You don’t have the Soul gem,” Tony said slowly.

“I don’t require it. No, not at all, not for this, don’t you see?”

“Because of Death?” Pepper prompted.

“Exactly, my dear. I just need to make sure that Thanos knows Malekith has his gauntlet, and Mistress Death needs to know what deals dear Malekith has made.”

Tony whistled. “You think she’s been missing those lost souls?”

“Oh yes,” Loki all but purred. “Quite.”

“What about Siberia?”

“That’s the tricky part, but that was always the tricky part,” Loki sighed. “Plans haven’t changed for Siberia.”

“What were they in the first place?” Pepper insisted.

“Oh, there’s a fire-giant under it,” Tony supplied. “Big, bad, nasty one.”

“And Hydra is _mining_ for it?!”

“Oh, they’re months behind schedule,” Loki sighed melodramatically. “So much in-fighting amongst the leadership, several terrible workplace accidents, and a constant cat-and-mouse game with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents... It’s no wonder they get so little done.”

Pepper’s eyebrows raised. “Wow. You’re _good_.”

He beamed at her: pure mischief. “Not at all.” Then he picked up a sandwich from the plate of them on the table and took a bite, chewing contently.

“Is there any way we can help?” she then added.

The trickster coughed, and only narrowly avoided choking. After a hard swallow and a long sip of water, he gingerly set down his sandwich. “Pardon?”

“It’s my planet, and I’d like to help prevent some collateral damage where possible,” she explained.

“Plus, this kinda sounds like fun,” Tony added, as he sat down at the table with them and set his tablet aside.

“Tony,” Pepper warned darkly.

“What? That’s not allowed?”

“I didn’t mean to encourage him,” Loki apologized.

“Don’t you start!” Tony growled, jabbing an accusing finger Loki’s way. “I was thinking about little pockets of temporal disturbance throughout the upper atmosphere over most of the planet except Siberia: little ones, not even enough to mess with any satellites, but many many many of them. If the ships are appearing here from outside the normal flow of time, those would mess with their systems, particularly navigation. They would see the only clear, identifiable place to show up, to be right where you need them to be. I could probably get Reed and Doc Strange working on it before sunset tomorrow, since I’m meeting with them for lunch.”

Loki started a bit, staring at the inventor for a long moment before he could quite formulate a response. “I’m both disconcerted and aroused.”

“We’re even, then. I’m usually like that around you, lately, especially when you’re talking. Now, how are you going to get Thanos to really believe Malekith has been the one running around and nicking gems?”

“Surreptitious dream-walking,” Loki said. “With enough effort, I can mimic his mistress for a while, which will in turn irritate her. The nature of dreams is such that she often appears in his, and has a connection to them sufficient for me to catch her attention through them. I can then introduce her to the Dark World, and offer to return all of its lost, entrapped souls to her keeping, back where they belong.”

“You’re sure you won’t get caught between the two of them?” Pepper asked.

“I’ve been at this for millennia,” Loki drawled.

“Still sounds a bit risky,” she sighed. “Doesn’t he have any advisors he’d listen to? Anyone who gets visions with any sort of regularity?”

“Well... yes, the leader of the Chitauri would match that description,” Loki mused. “And Thanos reads his mind with some frequency. I would just have to scare the living daylights out of him with visions of Malekith’s plans and give them a heavy dose of apparent prophecy. Oh, sweet petty revenge: I like it.”

“How long ‘til he notices?” Tony stage whispered.

Pepper kicked his shin under the table.

“Notice what, dare I ask?” Loki inquired.

“You’re involving us in your plans,” Pepper pointed out. “Not just revealing them, but giving us real input.”

The trickster paled a little. “By the Nine... you both manipulated me.”

“Successfully,” Pepper added, with a slightly playful smile.

“How’s it feel?” Tony asked lightly.

Loki leaned back in his chair and covered his mouth with his hand, glancing between the two of them with an alarmed expression. “I think I have incredibly good taste, and horrible judgement.”

The inventor laughed a little. “Welcome to my world.”

“Are you all right?” Pepper asked, resting a hand over one of the trickster’s.

“I... believe that I am,” he said slowly. “In a doomed sort of way.”

“You really should stop thinking you’re doomed just because we like you as much as you like us,” she said quietly. “You’re allowed to have people in your life you care about without being doomed to suffer in the end, not every time. We’re not like people you’ve known before, and I can at least promise you that.”

Loki took her hand and examined her expression, reading it. “You’re crazier than the both of us, Pepper Potts.”

“I know. It’s because I keep a conscience around. Irrational as it may be, I like being a good person most of the time,” she said.

“Good people are bothered by me, generally. Particularly my history,” the god reminded her.

She only winked at him. “Just because I keep it around doesn’t mean I really listen all that closely. Eat your lunch.”

Loki kissed the back of her hand, and released it in order to pick up his sandwich again. He caught Tony shooting him a shrewd sort of look and reached over with his free hand, grabbed one of Tony’s and kissed it too, before letting him go and taking a bite of his sandwich while Pepper laughed at Tony’s disconcerted expression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Tony tossed him[ this ](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-bg2jFMluco/S71QJzG7tOI/AAAAAAAAABs/cU3MHS7htrI/s1600/Amon+Amarth+Black+T-Shirt+\(2\).jpg)t-shirt first because he's an ass
> 
> ** He then refers vaguely to [this shirt](http://www.heavyroxx.com/shop/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Amon-Amarth-Surtur-Rising-t-shirt-front.jpg) too, again because he's an ass
> 
> In retrospect, the fact my head-canon has apparently decided that Tony Stark listens to Amon Amarth on occasion probably explains a little about why he's infuriatingly just-aware-enough of various bits of Norse myth to irritate the likes of Loki and Thor. Either that, or he discovered the band sometime after the invasion of New York City, while late-night/early-morning insomniac googling, and was so sleep-deprived-amused apparently bought t-shirts because he's Tony Stark and he does what he damn well pleases.

**Author's Note:**

> *The line "doting, if a little unwise" is borrowed reverently from Terry Pratchett's _Going Postal_.
> 
> **Loki's references to Asatru are a bit of him building a convenient lie so that he has the excuse not to discuss Lyra's family. Saying "she's in Valhalla" is less like an invitation for the universe to get even than if he were to carelessly (as a mage, with words having power as they do) say "she's dead". And in Frigga's case, she does visit Valhalla without being dead as a fairly common occurrence, which I think Loki finds doubly funny.
> 
> Now a minor Disclaimer:  
> THAT SAID: my personal head-canon was that, in all likelihood, someone once tried to explain Asatru to Lyra Walker, and left Loki with the impression that the old religions his kin kicked off were somehow still lingering about, such that Loki uses it as an excuse to know more than the average American about Norse Mythology--much as he relies on the middle name "Sky" being easily dismissed with a hand-wave and "mother was a hippie" explanation. (Also: my personal intro to Asatru years ago left me with a similar impression, and I got very confused until I researched it further, much later.) Loki doesn't care about accuracy, just being believable enough to pass for someone who willfully misunderstands it because they're a Srs Scientist With Scientific Integrity Or Somefing and the arrogant dismissal of various religions/occultism/paganism/etc that attitude can often come with. His utter lack of interest in the modern religion Asatru is, and his co-opting thereof, is pretty much just him using kind of dickish tactics to screw with people, as he's wont to do. Don't anything Loki might suggest about Asatru at all as any indicator of what its about anymore than you'd rely on _Monty Python's Life of Brian_ for an indication of what modern Christianity is like. The real thing, as practiced by real people, has a lot more to it, and a lot less emphasis on old Norse Myths.
> 
> Thanks to Mizstorage for pointing out that I should probably clarify that a bit, as it is a pretty big misrepresentation of Asatru, and I wouldn't want anyone to base their opinion of the modern religion on the antics of an old Norse god intent on mocking it, for the sake of a convenient lie, and being able to make references to Norse Myth in front of Tony Stark, knowing that when the truth did out, Tony would be pissed about it even further upon recalling those dropped hints.


End file.
